I felt the light tip this afternoon, and it took my breath away.

When I am sitting at my desk there is a window to the front yard to my left, and I was puzzling out a legal question—my phone set to “box fan” white noise so I could think without being distracted by the Saturday cadences accompanying a family and their five animals. I was looking up something when a tiny pinpoint of gold light hit the edge of my eye. My fingers were suddenly still.

“There it is…” I thought. I wait for this every year—it’s never exactly the same, but it never fails to show up. It’s one of my favorite moments in time, and many years I am looking for it. I swiveled my chair around to look out the window. Yep. There it is…the light changed. The leaves are still bright green and it’s hot and humid in Virginia with afternoon thunderstorms more often than not—it will be summer for a while yet. But it doesn’t matter. The light tipped.

Behind the still bright-green leaf tips is the sap starting to slow in the rough-barked trunks. The yard bunnies (yes, we have a family of yard bunnies) are getting thicker, and air smells different. As I get older, I appreciate this reliable tiny moment of beauty more and more. Everything changes. And it’s fine…because everything changes.