Finding Our Footing

Less than an hour ago I was sitting on the floor of our deck, feeling a breeze missing from our part of the state for what felt like months, watching my son race across the small patch of grass we call our backyard as he picked exactly ten flowers for me.

The flowers were, in fact, weeds - white clovers to be precise.  And as he would discover and pick each one he would run back to me and place it with all the delicacy a three-year old can muster, asking, "How many now, Dad?"  I would tell him, and with a sound that only parents can hear he would be off in search of the next one. I leaned back, listening to the birds and crickets and the neighbors and the creaking squeak of the screen door as my wife stepped out to watch, and I realized that what was happening was something I would want to record, to trap, to always have with me.  I also realized that every moment has the potential to be that, and there was no way I would ever be able to capture them all, but this was one I wasn't willing to relinquish.

So I didn't.