When I first started this little blog, my attempt was to write every day, my seat in a seat. That didn’t quite pan out as I had planned, although I did manage to put out a few pieces here and there.  Truth is, teaching middle school kids and parenting teenagers uses up all my creative oxygen. And then there’s the political landscape we now face daily — almost minute by minute.  I am either numbed into having no words — or I am inundated with too many words to make sense.

But now . . . summer.  Summer  stretches out before me like a chaise lounge in the sun. More empty spaces in my Google calendar.  More chance for chance.

More time to write.

So I promise to put my seat in a seat and write.  Every day for 30 days.  And then I’ll take a breath.  Track my creativity.  Maybe it will become a habit. Maybe I will learn something new.

My first thoughts on this first day of summer are all about the fragility of life.  Such a wispy thing.  What a blessing it is that we aren’t privy to whatever the next moment holds.  I like that about life.

This spring, when our California grasses were greener than ever after the winter rains — when wildflowers were spreading across the land like wildfires —  the small world I inhabit was rocked with human loss.  One shocking death after another.  As of yesterday, the count is up to four.  Each life way too young — each brought to stillness. A full stop. The rest of us are left to help heal each other’s hearts.  We stand, a little more broken, on the sidelines for a while.

Only for a little while.

Life steps in with the mundane and the miraculous.  Like dinner, which can be both.

I make dinner each night so my family can have a few moments together. Sometimes the tedium gets to me (another meal so soon?).  Other times, I marvel at the blessing of our family dinners and the way hearts heal, often one conversation linked to another.  Our talks connect us.  The connections heal the cracks and fissures.

Dinners are also how we support each other in our community, just as people have done since the beginning of time. One evening while delivering a meal to one of our grieving families, I spot a red-tailed hawk sitting regally on their front lawn bench.  She glances at me, with her piercing eyes. As I get out of my car, she leaps into flight.  There is something spiritual about this hawk, something that feels like a sign.  In that moment, I feel a healing breath.

That’s grace, I suppose.  The uncanny and unpredictable way we mend and patch those cracked and broken places.  So today — I hope you find grace in someplace you don’t quite expect it to be.

I’ll see you again tomorrow.