Recall a moment of perfect peace and contentment

Here is a task for you, gentle reader.  Recall a moment of perfect peace and contentment in your life. 

Here's mine. I’m somewhere around twelve years, on a late summers day.  Unbidden, I’ve weeded the rhododendron shrubs beneath my bedroom window.  Task done, dappled in shade, I lay my head beneath the plant canopy and breathe in the all-encompassing aroma of healthy soil.  I’m 12.  I know nothing about soil but I trust the richness of scent swirling airborne, caught in olfactory memory forever.  In that moment, (where I can take myself in a heartbeat 50 years later,) I am oh, so content. 


I am the world’s laziest kid.  I do things like hide in my closet, nose in a book, to avoid the unending tasks my mother finds for me.  She has to find me first, however.  I’ve got a cozy setup in my closet - a reading light and a stack of pillows for comfort.  The hardest thing is disappearing without a trace.  It requires great stealth, of which I’m a master.  Mom stomps down the hall, “where is Stephanie?”  Nobody knows.  Stomp, stomp, stomp.  (I can hear you Helene.  But you can’t find me.)  Emerging hours later also takes stealth.  Wait until Mom is at the other end of the house, sneak out the most appropriate exterior door, then come back in noisily slamming whichever exterior door is most convenient.  “Huh, been next door.  What?”  


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