Not to take it for granted

In Portland, I would have this experience on one morning each year.

I would get up early and go for my walk, bundled up against the cold and protected from the rain, and after perhaps four months of being greeted daily by stinging rain and bone-chilling wind, I would feel instead a balmy southern breeze, tumescent with the promise of warmth and growth and comfort and spring.

This morning here in Palm Springs I set out for my walk and was greeted by that very same comfortable caress. I sighed, and flashed back to those rare Portland mornings, made all the more piquant by their rarity. And it occurred to me that my duty, privilege and challenge, here in this land of perfect mornings, is to notice it with gratitude and awareness and appreciation, not to let the experience become commonplace, not to take it for granted.