The morning air: crisp and refreshing, a welcome sign that Spring was finally descending. He found himself lingering, entranced, though he had intended to step outside for only a moment before returning to the couch and an open-faced book, which threatened to flip a few pages and lose its place. But he couldn’t leave; he stood mesmerized, a statue frozen by the full warmth of the morning sun. 

Finally, he melted back to consciousness and with the first decision of the day, brought out his smoking pipe. As a puff of smoke escaped his mouth, he settled in, taking in his surroundings with the utmost attentiveness. He noticed the little leaves of his wife’s mint plant, green in shadow but transparent-yellow where the sun met the tops of the curling blades. He noticed the droplets of water that refused to fall from the underside of the porch railing: evidence of last night’s downpour. He heard the distant calls of jays, the nearby shouts of blackbirds, and the shrill songs of sparrows. He felt the gentle rustle of the breeze as it touched his skin, and caught a waft of someone’s nearby breakfast. 

As he took in the beauty around him, he thought no more of the stories others had written, where he was a mere onlooker. Instead, he dreamed of his own story, the one he hadn’t written yet. His mind was filled with awe as he considered the scurrying squirrels and the budding trees, the deepening blues of the sky and the disappearing shadows beneath the trees. He couldn’t help but recreate the world he perceived, and so he pulled out pen and paper and wrote: “The morning air: crisp and refreshing, a welcome sign that Spring was finally descending.”