Last night, I faced west and watched the sun fade.

Most nights, I am awed by the beauty of the impending night.

The sky a burst of color, I grabbed my camera and took a series of pictures, but a camera can never truly capture the wonder of the moment and all the other ineffable and impermanent points of life.

I have a couple of friends who take incredible pictures that seem to capture the beauty, but I wonder at what price. It is the totality of experience that is so compelling and can only be experienced in the moment. Distracted by capturing the ephemeral, does not one lose it?

Last night, the breeze was dry and warm and crickets reminded me that summer encroaches. A cow mooed. Another answered. Children laughed in the neighbor’s yard.

The sun did not set on the day. It welcomed the evening. The transition was soft and playful.

This morning, I rose early to face east. It is a reminder of the arc of life. Since moving west, it holds more meaning than ever. To the east rests part of my heart, my daughter lives 2,042 miles away.

The morning sky changed so much from the previous evening. A couple of scissor tailed flycatchers pipped from the top of the oak tree. My rooster called as my hens squabbled down in the coop. Morning traffic carried across the hill from the road to the country. Sounds of familiarity that root me.

Small moments, many times, is time unfolding — the self unfolding – even as each is wrapped within itself and conditioned to a sense of timelessness.

In seizing the day, perhaps we lose the heart of 1,440 minutes … each a moment of possibility. Each a chance to break open the heart and know it.