Summer nights on the porch with the family, the bug zapper going, nobody in a rush. That’s the good stuff.

Nothing about an evening like that announces itself as important while it is happening. No plan, no occasion, no photographs worth keeping, just people in the same place with nowhere to be and the sound of insects dying in a purple light. Those are the evenings that come back to you later with surprising force. Ordinariness is the whole reason they survive.

Sit outside with your family one evening this week with no plan and no screen. Let it be slightly boring. Stay out past the point where you would normally go in.