I stood in my yard two days before this week's vacation, making a mental list of chores for after I completed my four papers for a masters' class I just took on East Asia. Two tall fir trees tower above the puny beech and birch trees on our land, obstructing no small portion of my mountain view. They must be dropped, I thought to myself, hands on hips, my mind already hearing the sound of my Husqvarna whining and slicing through the base of the offending conifers.

Then, later that day, my oldest son and I went for a hike, only 15 minutes or so, but that's a hike for a six-year-old, especially when he's leading the way and Daddy puts him in the woods and says "Get us home."

He'd take steps, look over his shoulder and say "This way?" I'd only shrug and smile. He was unsure of himself, but smiled the entire time at the trust Daddy put in him. Eventually he found landmarks he remembered and found his way to our yard, but not before taking us to the base of not just one, but both of those fir trees. They'd existed so long, shaded the ground so efficiently, that nothing grew beneath them. It was but a bed of soft needles and forest detritus.

My son stopped, looked at the first clearing and said "We should make a fort here."

I agreed, thinking it was the perfect spot for a fort - tree fort or otherwise - until we arrived at the second tree I had considered dropping. This was even more perfect, proving perfection is more a combination of state of mind and time than fact. My son asked if we could make a fort there, too. "Sure," I replied.

Moments later we were home, the second tree a landmark we'd visited before last year's first snowfall. As we trekked through the woods, pushing our way through brush and limbs to emerge in our lawn, I looked over my shoulder, seeing more trees than mountains.

That's the way it's supposed to stay, I assume. I know a sign when I see it. As we crossed the threshold and entered the house, father and son, I erased the first item on my list, and replaced it with a promise to a son. Simplify, indeed.

 

The day is perfect, and it's only 7:15 a.m. The sky is both transparent and blue. Pristine. Perfect. If I looked long and hard enough, I would see eternity. The snow on Mount Madison and Mount Adams is melting, enough so that there is more rock visible than snow on the former. There are hints of green in trees, buds waiting to pop and explode ot life in celebration of spring. Green grass is sprouting through browns patches of death, and six cords of wood await my sweat and muscle. But no complaints there, as it's the perfect physical foil for the mentally draining days stuck inside a school.

Today, I'll enjoy the final day of vacation before heading back to Room 109 tomorrow for the final seven weeks of the year. But now, in the solitude of the morning I force the future aside. Or attempt to. A clock ticks beside me. My boys' toys litter the lawn outside. A pair of robins walk in the yard, sprinting, stoppping, sprinting, stopping, their rusty breasts, yellow beaks and black backs and heads a reminder that winter has left for now.

I'll miss the view, this corner of my home where I grae, read, write, play, draw and sometimes eat. I'll miss knowing that if I walk outisde I'll hear not some mother scolding child, but Mother Nature's waning patience. I'll miss chores on m y land, boys running along earthen paths in the woods, nights on the patio, alone but for the stars and air.

My present is filled with that which won't always be; I'd best learn the lesson well and enjoy the myriad of presents of each day as they come.

I don't look at this as night, though. The optimism in me instead looks for dawn. The whole man realizes that every end is followed by a beginning, dawn can follow only night, mountaintops exist thanks only to the valleys, the sun feels warmest after winter's chill. So the present that will never again be from my view is new rather than old, a start rather than that which is finished.

Footsteps upstairs, bare and quick, patter across the floor. My morning ends. Theirs, and ours, begins.