This morning I enjoyed a cup of coffee on our new deck while I journaled. I’ve been wanting to do this for years. First we didn’t have a deck, then we did, then I had a lot of reasons keeping me from doing exactly the things I wanted a desk for.

It was as much a revelation for what was not in the quiet (leaf blowers, neighbors’ music, infernal skeet shooting) as for what was: chatty blue jays descanting over a steady cicada rhythm. Even the traffic from the highway a few miles away, rather than an intrusion, was a pleasant reminder that life is going on in some capacity during pandemic.