A meditation, in these fraught times, for my only daughter

      An advertising billboard on I-40 got my attention with the proclamation: The best is yet to come.

      But I'm thinking—wait, what if we're so busy hoping and waiting for the Best That Is Yet To Come—that we miss the precious immediate miracle of the Now?

      And, what if—This ... right now … is the Best of Times?

      I am sitting on the deck as golden dusk settles on Sourwood Holler. Ahmad Jamal plays Poinciana from inside the cabin that I began building 50 years ago this summer, "with a little help from my friends."

      A November chill steals down the creek valley. I am writing in gloves, a toboggan cap fends off the cold. Feet up on a stool, wool socks, first brew and a stolen pipe (my sin). A solitary puff of smoke wafts out thoughtfully over the deck to Ruby's meadow below. A rusted bent cut nail salvaged from the Giving House decades ago tamps the tobacco's fire. A waning gibbous moon will rise later tonight over a mountain called Slickey.

      Up there, the last rays of the setting sun linger lovingly on the lacy leaf-free hardwoods. And I flash on little Selena and Hannah, 6 and 5 respectively, sliding down the steep sides with their Barbie Dolls—and you, dear heart, informing me importantly, like a reporter returning breathlessly from a breaking news scene—"Daddy, that’s one slickey mountain!"          

            Ah, is this not happiness?