I get grumpy sometimes on my afternoon walks when the trail is too loud and treeless in this semi-industrial place where I live. I just wish it were scenic.

But then I realize that it is scenic to some people. It’s not scenic to me because I’m an adult woman fixated on trees and quiet. I’m not that little boy in his stroller, who is fixated with his mouth agape at the big machinery moving gravel. His mother points at the forklifts and the diggers, the cranes and haulers. He stares in rapturous awe at the toys he plays with on his bedroom floor come to immense life.

It’s scenic to him.

He’d probably find a tree-lined quiet path dead boring.