ALTUS

Latin has one word for high and deep. Altus is the mountain and the well, the top of a tower and the floor of the sea. It measures the distance from where you stand and does not care in which direction.

That seems strange until you stand on a summit. From up there the valley lies as far below you as the sky lies above.

Height and depth turn out to be the same thing: a great deal of space between you and the ground.

Democritus, the philosopher who imagined the world made of atoms, said we know nothing for certain, because truth lies in the depths. He could just as well have said in the heights. Either way it is far from the surface where we spend most of our days.

Few of us go looking for it. Most of the time the surface is enough. Then something happens, a loss, a sleepless night, a view from a mountain, and the ground opens a little in both directions.

For a moment it is frightening. It is also the only place from which things look their real size.