Front yard, 2 a.m.

The first night of last month's Perseids meteor shower found us standing outside, late in the evening, leaning against the car so our necks wouldn't hurt from staring at the sky. Between us we spotted seven or eight "shooting stars," two of them with brilliant tails. Not bad, but the next day we learned that had we gone outside between 2 and 3 a.m., the show would have been more spectacular.

So the next night I set the alarm for 2 a.m. Armed with an old blanket, I headed for the front yard. (It brought to mind another August night, years ago, when we lay in the grass, watching for shooting stars, and nearly jumped out of our skins when the cat tiptoed by and her bushy tail brushed against our faces.)

Back to last month.

I lay there, staring at the sky, waiting for the show to begin.

Nothing.

OK, I did see two garden-variety shooting stars, but none of this one-a-minute spectacle people on social media had predicted.

Disappointed? A little. But the stillness of that night, the cool air, the chance to lie back and stare at the sky reminded me that I need to do this a bit more often. Maybe not at 2 a.m. in the front yard, but somewhere, sometime.

It isn't just about finding time to be still, something else I need to do more often. It's about stopping long enough to feel how good it is to still be here.

You don't need more than an old blanket and a patch of grass to reignite your sense of wonder at something as "ordinary" as a shooting star. You just have to make the time.