Good Life

The sun streams brilliantly in invisible beams onto my shoulders. The warmth it provides slowly heats up the joints and muscles which seemed to have taken leave back in the winter. Over the course of the day, the neighbors pull out every imaginable gardening instrument and motorized cutting and chopping device that has been sold over the last dozen years and work and worry over every square inch of their yards.

Bees fly around anything now in bloom seemingly playing tag with spring’s harvest. A thin yellow layer of pollen settles on anything not fast enough to get out of the way. The reawakening of the earth, in the form of springtime, eventually settles in my nostrils where a slight tingle causes a sneeze now and then.

Kids ride their bikes up and down the street. Other kids shoot hoops in their driveways. A car glides by with the windows down and the radio up just enough so I can make out the words to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “They Call Me The Breeze”.

Seventy-five degrees, blue skies and a slight gust of wind now and then that makes the chimes on the front porch dance. My wife stands a few feet away, her body framed in sunlight as she smiles at me. Then, for awhile everything in the world, from the rancor over politics, the bitterness over failures, the consternation over unexpected things and all the hurts and aches and bumps and bruises that drain time and energy in my world fade away. And I realize life is good. Real good.