Hello darkness my old friend

Saturday night my daughter Molly and I found ourselves inexplicably alone at a gorgeous camp fire .

(The gentlemen in our party had wandered off into the woods and landed at a neighbor’s pond where they built socially distant sand castles and tried to catch fish with their bare hands.)

So, we were quite blissful at the largesse of peace we’d been granted. Sometimes, the sounds of silence are the most beautiful of all.

We had some Google-less fun trying to identify night birds echoing up from the river and watching them fly home for the night.

The pure magic of moments occurred to me as Molly and I fed the flames and listened to dusk fall over the woods.

Mesmerized by crackling birch, I thought about all we had temporarily lost in the face of this global pandemic, and all we could still count on to get us through.

We can’t enjoy events, or festivals, concerts, parades, sports, parties, reunions or live graduations right now because it isn’t safe.

But, we do have moments.

We have:

• Summer campfires
• Rainy afternoons
• The kind of music that brings tears to our eyes
• Inside jokes and belly laughs
• Hot showers
• Butter melted on fresh baked bread
• Cartwheels
• Reciprocated smiles from cute children we may or may not know
• Cheerful chalk messages
• Starry nights and all those wishes
• Sunrises, sunsets or both depending on your schedule that day
• Deep, cleansing breaths
• Long, slow runs
• Morning glories
• The smell of fresh sheets when you turn down your bed
• Hot, sticky marshmallows
• A really well-written turn of phrase.

I hope you all find and celebrate your moments. Stay safe everyone!