Today I visited, for the first time, a local park. As I walked the mile long, paved loop, I passed other people enjoying the cloudless sky: a man and his collie, a woman and her girls, a jogger whose face grew redder with each lap.
What captured my attention most, however, were the trees that buffered the edge of the twenty-seven-acre park. There I heard bluebirds and spotted an old hummingbird’s nest.
And as I rounded the last corner, I heard a sound that never fails to make me smile: frogs. They barked from a puddle in the buffer. I wondered how many people would pass by and unknowingly question the source of that strange sound. And I thought about the many places like this, scattered through townships across America, each one an oasis for humans and non-humans alike.
