I came home from work today to find the lawn crew hard at work. The recent month-long deluge has taken my parched and patchy lawn and turned it into a lush sprawl of green, and when I went out to fill the feeders this morning, there were purple wild flowers in the back yard that reached to my knees. They’d just finished mowing, and the scent of fresh-cut grass was heavy in the moist air. I flashed back to a Sunday afternoon when I was six or seven. I was in the back yard, on the swing my father had built for me. My brother was mowing the lawn and my father was tending a grill he’d made out of an old oil barrel, cut in half. I remember being aware at that moment, that life was full, and good. Perfect. I recognized that it was a memory I’d have forever.

Well, it’s fifty years later, and all it took was one whiff to send me back in time.