There are certain things that simply belong to summer.
Fresh tomatoes still warm from the garden.
Homemade ice cream.
The happy sounds of children splashing in the water.
The crack of a bat at a baseball game.
Sweet tea and watermelon on a hot afternoon.
The smell of freshly cut hay.
Honeysuckle drifting on the evening breeze.
Backyard barbecues.
The distant hum of a lawn mower somewhere down the road.
And, if you ask me . . . .
Butterflies and fireflies.
The other day I came across a simple thought that stayed with me much longer than I expected.
It wasn’t complicated. In fact, it centered around one of the smallest marks in our written language — a tiny little dash.
You know the one. The little dash between the dates.
Every life can eventually be described by two dates. One marks the day we entered the world. The other, someday, marks the day our earthly story is complete.
Between those two dates is a simple little dash.
But when one thinks about it, that tiny dash mark somehow has to represent an entire lifetime.
Not just the years . . . . the life. The living in between the dates.
And that got me thinking.
Perhaps the most important part isn’t the dates at all.
Perhaps it has always been the life between them.
Welcome back to the Front Porch. I’m glad you could stop by for a few minutes.
Lately I’ve found myself thinking about simple things.
Trees.
Wildflowers.
Birds.
Butterflies.
Forests.
Streams.
The ordinary things that make a place feel alive.
Perhaps it comes from spending so much time wandering through Honey Hill Country. Or perhaps it simply comes with age. Either way, I found myself sitting with a thought the other day.
Not a complicated thought.
Just a hopeful one.
It’s a quiet Tuesday here — the kind that invites a pause.
And that feels like the right place to begin.
While the year is still new, there is a softness to the days that does not last long. The holidays have packed themselves away, and the calendar has turned without yet asking much of us. Mornings arrive more gently. Even the house seems to move at a slower pace, as though it, too, is willing to linger a moment before the year begins in earnest.
Porches are swept clean. Decorations are carefully taken down and set aside. The lights that remain are fewer, but somehow warmer for it. Routines return slowly — politely — without knocking too loudly. Most of the calendar is still blank, and there is comfort in that. Room to move. Room to breathe.
By the time January reaches its first full week, the talk of New Year’s resolutions has begun to hum a little louder. Lists are made. Promises are weighed. Some folks feel the pull to hurry — to decide everything at once, or to prove something before the year has truly had time to arrive.
But there is no bell to beat here.
The Front Porch by James Milson 