Reason #1: When I was a kid I was out playing tag one night with friends. I was running away from whoever was "it," when I heard a hissing above my left shoulder. I looked up and saw a small fiery ball, floating at a steady pace through the night sky. It fell with a hiss into the grass. I ran to the spot, dropped to my knees and patted the grass, expecting to get burned if I wasn't careful. But there was nothing there, only a warm spot among the blades. It was the closest I've ever come to a meteorite. When one of the universe's marvels pops suddenly into existence over your shoulder and you're only eight or nine years old, what else are you going to do when you grow up but write a blog about wonder?

Reason #2: As a teenager my best friend and I had an exciting, but nerdy, habit. Every Friday night we would go to the Rapid City (South Dakota) Public Library and explore the stacks. We were looking for books we didn't know about. On one of those Friday nights, I was perusing the oversized section and slipped out a slim volume filled with alluring photographs of the sea and woods. It was Rachel Carson's The Sense of Wonder. I had heard of Rachel Carson, so I checked out the book. I read it, got lost in the photos, and wound up committing large sections of Carson's poetic text to memory. If you want to rekindle your sense of wonder, read that book.