I am at peace this morning and thankful for my life. I am remembering a line from a country song: "to be living in a moment you would die for." That pretty much sums up how I feel. To write about it is almost boring; the English language does not have the properly serene adjectives. We are spending the weekend in a cabin in Ocala. The home has electricity, hot running water, and air conditioning, so the Daniel Boone image conjured by the word cabin, does not completely apply. But it is peaceful. The house is nestled among tall pines inside the national forest. Our interior comfort is belied by the rustic exterior, and the rain gouged mile of trail that pretends to be a road leading up here. Yesterday we relaxed, doing much of nothing. I walked in the woods and saw a mother raccoon foraging with two half-grown kits. They must have been teens. They were curious, fearless, and immortal; wanting to play with me and discover what I was. Mom became a bit agitated with them. She looked at me apologetically, like she realized their youth was more a danger than I was, but unable to change that, she would have to settle for defending their ignorance against the threat of my presence. I would have enjoyed watching them play, but the father in me knew all too well that mother's anxiety. I walked away. Later, I took my own child for a walk in the woods. A city girl, she marveled at the beauty; nervously questioned every movement and sound; and complained bitterly about the heat, humidity, and bugs. I silently wished that other parent good luck. The rest of our day was spent in idyllic nothingness. That night, I tucked my sleeping daughter into dreamland, then joined my wife in bed. We made love slowly with a tenderness that wrung tears from my eyes. It was more a joining of souls than bodies. Not the sort of melding we normally engage in, but appropriate to the day and a most welcome change. Blame it on the beginnings of a gentle rain, the waft of pine scented zephyrs, and the security of the three of us being (momentarily) the only people left in the world. I woke this morning to the sounds of light rain pinging the tin roof and distant thunder receding, yielding to the waking songs of birds. My family is sleeping, safe and content: I am at peace. It is possibly some recessed prehistoric gene that defines my image of myself as father and husband with this picture of protector/provider. Whatever the reason, there is nothing more I could ask from this day, I have it all. Contentment quiets the writer's need to voice and makes for dull reading. There is no plot, excitement, nor conflict to cleverly resolve: boring. I normally feel most alive when closest to death. Life is, after all, fraught with peril, movement, challenges to body and mind. Strangely, these rare moments of tranquility provide more satisfaction than any conquest of man, problem, or element, ever has. I do not understand it, but I am enjoying it. Maybe there are some things in life that can't be explained, only thankfully enjoeyd.©MichaelWest