An acorn falls from a tree and pelts the ground with a thud. The impact stirs a small pale moth who flutters from one blade of grass to the safety of another.
On the south side of Chicago, I walked across snow-covered sand on an icy lakeshore. The ice that had formed where water met beach lowly creaked as water moved underneath it. The winter day was cold, but, thankfully, there was a lack of wind whose harshness would have only been magnified by traveling across Lake Michigan.