The water flows down the valley into a stream. There is a glimmer in the waters from where the light hits, the kind that seasoned artists capture in their paintings. A young deer stoops to drink from the stream. It is picture perfect, scenic and calm.
A woman walks through the meadow carrying a basket of strawberries. Her hair is in two plaits, and the hem of her dress billows with the wind. The meadow smells of freshly-cut grass, with a whiff of forest oak from yonder.
She looks up to the sky, eyes fixated at the shapes and patterns forming in the clouds. Her toddler brother runs gaily around her humming the tune of a nursery rhyme. She reaches over to carry him in a swoop and her strawberries fall to the ground and tumble through the grass. They laugh at the encounter, that of love, closeness and siblinghood.
Fresh bread is baking in the oven at grandmother's, as grandmother removes her apron and sits in her rocking chair to read a book. The curls around her temple frame her face softly, as she brushes a strand from an eye and tucks it beneath her sturdy butterfly clip. Frank Sinatra plays in the background through a 1990 store-bought record player.
It is a simple, uneventful day, the kind you trade for grandeur - ones with stupendous hikes, profit-making sales or record-breaking medals - but it stands on its own like fuchsia peeking through a world of swanky, patent black. It is the sort of day you imagine yourself twirling to the sound of music, your thoughts quiet and your body warm and whole.
For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time for war, and a time for peace.
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