Smells like Rain The hunter sat waiting and looking up in a beech-wood. “The leaves were whispering faintly over my head,” wrote Ivan Turgenev. “You could have told the time of year from their whisper alone.” “Partly cloudy, wind NNW, 62F,” a weather app might have...

The Laughter of Children  “My neighborhood is so damn quiet,” a friend said. “When we moved in thirty years ago, children were everywhere. Now it’s quiet and all of a sudden we’re old.” Just then laughter parted the air. Children were playing nearby. “It’s the...