I took George outside the other morning and noticed a patch of golden sunlight sparkling in the dew-bright grass. I hated looking away — but I didn’t want to keep watching until that perfect patch of sparkling sunlight disappeared.

Happiness is kind of like that, isn’t it? You can’t hold it too tightly or it breaks off in your fingers like the fragile petals of a flower. You just have to savor your current version of happiness, palms up and open as the happiness rests lightly in your hands.By nature, I’m a savorer. Always have been. I have a vivid memory of the most savoring-filled evening of my life, when I was about thirteen, hovering at my bedroom window, drinking in that night’s perfection. Everyone had gone to bed; I had gotten back out. Window open, I’d heard the stirring melody of the breeze rustling the Chinese tallows’ leaves in the side yard, and the smooth, velvety jazz of a clarinet. In front of a neighbor’s house,  a car idled, empty, waiting for its driver to tear himself away from a party. He couldn’t tear himself away, apparently. So his car idled quietly and the clarinet purred out the open car windows, down the road, and through my screen. The night was serene and still, a slip of a moon dangling in the sky. I could have sworn that even the moon rustled in the breeze.

I can’t remember exactly how that night ended. Maybe the driver got back into his car and went on his way. Maybe I finally unfolded my arms from the window sill and closed my window on all that beauty, choosing to remove myself before the beauty ended.

Either way, it’s a memory that taught me a lesson I hold dear. Savor what is right in front of you. In its current incarnation, it won’t last forever. But if you savor it fully, it will be just as beautiful in your memory.

And I had never really noticed it before, but since that night, I’ve always swooned over the clarinet.

~ Laura