Yesterday, one of the final days of my winter vacation, was as relaxed a day as I can recall. It began, as my days nearly always do, with some quiet reading and writing in the early morning hours. As I sat at my desk in the silence of the apartment, my life seemed utterly serene . Nothing was pressing, nothing had to be done, no future situations were clamoring for my attention: all was perfectly centered in the page I was reading or the words I was writing. The serenity continued into the early afternoon, when I joined some good friends for lunch at a stylish but peaceful café in a nearby village. We had a wonderful time together, and we didn’t have to work hard to do it. Our laughter came as freely and easily as the rain outside. While we sat and talked for over two hours, I felt as restful as I’ve ever felt. In the late afternoon, I again experienced a magical kind of relaxation when I sat by the rainy window in my apartment and watched the end of a classy British mystery show on DVD. That situation is almost my favorite kind of peacefulness: a rainy day, a window from which to enjoy the storm, a good movie (or book), and a pot of steaming tea. I felt thoroughly grateful as I sat there enjoying my magnificent life.