I spend a lot of time at my desk.

My desk faces east, in the sunroom with large windows all around. I am a morning person, usually up by 5:00 a.m. This time of year, it is just getting light as sunrise is just before 5:30. Sitting at my desk, I watch the sky slighten behind the mountains of the Swan Range, filtered by a bit of my woods.

To the west, the sunroom has both a window and a sliding glass door. The door leads to an alcove of grass in a corner made by the sunroom, which is tacked on to the end of the house. In that corner, shaded by a large Ponderosa Pine, is a small lilac bush and a patch of Lily-of-the-Valley. The Chair sits there. Karl likes to lie just beyond the big pine and keep watch over the ravine that is also an active game trail.

Earlier this week, on a gloomy, drippy morning, I brought a few sprigs of the lily-of-the-valley inside to sit on my desk. That pretty little cruet, the warm light from the little desk lamp, the perfect little blossoms…the little things.