Tranquilo

Carly and I went out at sundown to pick flowers for the supper table. The house was calm because Edwin, Manuel, and Mauro were gone to play fútbol in Yerbas Buenas. I was content because the floors were freshly swept, and there were brownies in the oven.

The evening was cool, the wet grass tickling our legs as we wandered down the muddy lane towards the church. We admired the orange trees, bent with fruit, and avoided the bushy places where we could hear the lizards scampering away to their little dens.

We gathered handfuls of the stalky purple flowers that grow in the back of the churchyard--somewhat weedy but still beautiful.

I wanted to take that moment and bottle it--to keep for a later, duller time. The sunset, the happy bug noises, our grasps of flowers and the smell of brownies as we tiptoed through the mud to home.