The perfect time of day

I love evening time; those few hours when daylight changes into night. Colors become sharper and everything becomes more contrasted as sunlight mixes with newly formed shadows. I appreciate my surroundings more during this period of time; the world seems exceptionally beautiful.

Apparently I am not the only one who loves this particular moment in the day. My niece and nephews wandered outside as evening started last Saturday. They peered at the household garden and raced up and down the sidewalk by their home before moving on to scrambling up a few miniature trees that line up in front of their home. The trees are the perfect height for them; my oldest nephew and niece can easily scale to the top branches. They are still, however, a challenge for my youngest nephew. I had to hoist him up so he could perch on one of the rough, scaly limbs. Standing on the tips of the trees, my oldest nephew and niece scanned their surroundings like scouts in a Western movie and admired the evening's beauty.

Those vivid colors eventually swirled together to create the night's blackness and my offer to help build a fort persuaded my niece and nephews to abandon their tree posts and go back inside. It was time to go inside, anyway. The world was now drenched in opaque darkness; there was nothing that could be seen. I spread an old comforter over the arm of the family room's sofa and one of the dogs' crates to create,what I thought, would be an adequate indoor tent. At first I thought I had won the kids' approval only to see my niece correct my invention by making her own fort out of the dining room chairs. Her fort really was the better one; she ingeniously formed the chairs into the shape of a hexagon. It was tough to compete.

In time, the fort building project was abandoned for watching "Megamind." All three of them became quiet and sleepy. Come to think of it, that is my other favorite time of day. That period of time when a day's work (or in this case, play) has ended and you can sit and relax knowing this time of relaxation is well-deserved. It's alright to lean back into the sofa cushion and kick off your shoes - it's a great way to end a perfect day.