It just is: Being quiet and not caring about why I feel happy

A little lake in Wisconsin's Northwoods, 5:50 a.m., May 5, 2018.

It was just so damned perfect at 5:45 a.m. Saturday.

That's when I rolled out of bed, came to the living room and looked at the day that had developed to that point.

Inside, the shack was quiet. The coffee was waiting to be made. The lights were still off. The news of the day hadn't been heard or seen.

Outside, ... I looked. And I looked again. An actual double-take.

The water was perfectly — PERFECTLY — still. No ripples, no blemishes, no fish jumping, no turtles swimming, no birds diving. Just the sky, the shoreline and the trees, accurate and proportionate in their reflections off the surface.

The sun was peeking over the treeline, barely enough to help anyone who was awake see this spectacularly calming sight.

The birds — maybe a few million or so, maybe a few hundred — were all talking at the same time, trying to squeeze a word in edgewise. Like a family reunion after a winter apart.

It was almost deafening, but in that good way that makes you happy for being alive enough to enjoy the moment. And it was quiet, in that calming way that makes you happy for knowing enough to be still and savor the world around you.

Ordinarily, I might use a word like "rare" or "unique" to describe that perfect moment. And I would be wrong.

I'm just not always awake in time to record the experience.

This perfect morning, though, prompted a thought: Why do some of us get such utter joy from those moments? What's the benefit of being quiet?

The curmudgeon in me — and many will say that's 100 percent of me — says: I don't know. And I don't care. It just makes me happy.

I don't take those moments to center in on my breathing, or plan my life with any great purpose or clarity. But I suspect that others do, and I appreciate and understand it.

Volumes have been written about the advantages of being quiet, and most of them are probably available at your local web browser. (Feel free to test this theory by Googling "the advantages of being quiet." You're welcome.)

But some of those tomes are written from an "ohmigod, guys, you should soooo try this" — that is, insincere and annoying — perspective that essentially equates being quiet with trying a fad diet or a fad fashion.

And it's far from that.

It's just still, and calm, and peace.

It just is. And it's so damned perfect.

That's probably what the birds were talking about.