Perspective

Another beautiful morning in a long string of them... soon enough, the air will make the turn to thick and we'll close the windows, shut out the day and pump in the air conditioning. Spring is the shortest season around here.

I count AC among the world's necessary evils. As a kid, I grew up in a house with fans, open windows and nights spent above the sheets, listening to the dark. Also, to the sounds of life. It's amazing what you miss when the weather heats and the windows close. As a kid, I never missed air conditioning, because we never had it. What I miss now, between June and September, are the sounds: Birds, kids, dogs, the ice cream truck, conversations across the front porch. What Joni Mitchell called "the hissing of summer lawns.''

This morning, I'm sitting on the brick patio I built in the furthest reaches of the backyard, shoulder to shoulder with a hundred-year-old shagbark hickory that will thrive long after I won't. The woods have bloomed, so the houses behind me are hidden. Cardinals peep and play tag, squirrels are acrobats, the golden retriever looks at them all and wonders why she can't fly.

It's quiet enough I can hear my own breathing. None of it means a thing, except maybe this:

If we don't allow ourselves moments such as these, from time to time, we tend to forget why we're here.

Look. See. Listen. Feel. Appreciate. Live big, in the moment.