It's been a long, long time since I've watched a sunny spring morning in my parents' backyard. Usually I'm here in winter or summer and I sleep late, so I'm used to spending afternoons and evenings by the pool. By then I can bask in full sunlight or wind down with the dusk, but this morning light is different. Gentle. A little shy. Still bright, of course, but it shades through the trees uphill of the house, dappling the yard in pools of shadow and sun, casting the new leaves in every green from lime through deep, deep emerald. The morning sky retains an almost autumnal vibrancy, and all of it---sky, trees, soft sunlight, hilly earth, and the dancing breeze---seem to wrap me up together with them. So peaceful.

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