When I was a kid, and we went to the grand old circus that came to town in a big tent with wondrous elephants leading the parade from the train, I always saved up to buy some pinwheels which I would hang out of the car window. Usually they blew away if the wind was strong, or they just fell apart. While they lasted, they were beautiful, hypnotic and enchanting for  me. I have often dreamed of them. This week I stopped at a store in Cambridge, N.Y., and bought four of them. I put them up on the front lawn, right around a maple tree we planed last Fall, one of the first things we did to our new home.

I got a spade and put the in five or six inches. It has been quite windy the last few days and my pinwheels have stood up quite well, spinning through much of the day. Steve the UPS man, liked them and asked me what they were for. I said I wasn’t sure. They seem to represent the nature of life to me, beautiful, a whirlwind, fragile and filled with color. And most important of all, they are always spinning, just like life, never static. One day they will be gone, perhaps they will just take off in the wind, they spin so hard. Pinwheels are like life, I think. I am happy to have them on my law. They say life happens here.