evening ruminations

I'm sitting on our porch listening to the evening birds and watching the sunset sunlight turn our neighbor's flowering trees an impossible shade of pink. The traffic on nearby Division Street is a soft lullaby, undulating waves of tires on asphalt. Every so often, an airplane makes its slow arc overhead, leaving an expanding trail through thinly-stretched tufts of clouds. The sky is a template of pale blue. Everything is peaceful, soft, like the edges of life are blurred and wrap around me like a comfortable quilt.

I want to pull it all around me, cozy up to its stitches. I want to breathe deeply and slowly, letting the evening air fill my lungs with outdoors. I want to close my eyes and dissolve into the sounds that surround me, let my molecules drift away on the gentle breeze before they reconvene into a whole. I want to be alive to every sensation.

On an evening like tonight, I am so glad to be sitting on my porch in the midst of it all.