It is April 10^thand I am on my “constitutional,” a three to four mile walk around the Cleveland Park neighborhood in Washington where Embry and I have lived for almost 50 years. I try to “get in my steps” four or five times a week. Today I am especially stunned by the beauty of the Washington spring. It has been a wet and cool spring this year, and plants love it. Today the temperature is in the mid 60s with low humidity and a gentle breeze. Because spring was late in coming, everything seems to be blooming at once. Daffodils and forsythia are still around, joined now by red, yellow, and orange tulips and pansies of all kinds of colors. The ethereal, Japanese cherry trees have started to pale and wilt, but bright, pink ornamental cherry trees are replacing them, and lavender redbud trees seem to be in every yard. The ivory colored blooms of dogwoods are just starting to peep out. Azaleas will not be far behind. Tiny green buds are on every tree. The Carolina blue sky is cloudless. 

I am speechless.

I take a deep breath and say a short prayer, “Thank you God for most this amazing day…” a line you may remember from one of ee cummings’s best poems. I ask myself if any place in the vast universe could top this. Did someone once say that if God did not exist, humans would have to invent Him? Do some say that now?

I say do not even begin to think that we humans can figure all this out. Just breathe in the fresh air, marvel at the colors all around you, smell the perfume of the flowers, and give thanks that you are alive.