Lawn mowing has its rewards. 

After a hot morning’s mow, I pulled a lounge chair into the shade, stretched out and looked up.
White clouds wandered through a beautiful blue sky, all in a maple-leaf frame. 

A jet punched through the clouds into a patch of blue, and quickly disappeared into the white.
To the right, the jet’s long puffy contrail arced behind. I imagined the plane’s path, and watched the spot where I guessed it would reappear.

Seconds passed. I wondered, briefly, how fast the jet was going, how long it would take to reappear, or if it would stay hidden behind the clouds.
Seconds more later, there it was, darting through a new blue gap, safely traveling on.

It does pay to look up.

—

I haven’t written Momentary Joy in quite some time. As with most writerly gaps, there’s a reason for that.
My mom died back in February. Since then, I’ve been traveling, often wandering, through grief — a path both familiar and yet also new. Mom and Dad are now both gone, and the loss is immeasurable.

I’ve been working on a piece about Mom, and saying goodbye, and I got it stuck in my head that I wouldn’t — couldn’t — write anything else until that was finished. It felt almost disloyal to do it any other way.
I'm blessed with a therapist who helped me see the possibility of another way through, allowing me to let the writing go for awhile and trust what would come — whatever that might be.

Throughout Mom’s final illness, and in all the days that followed, momentary joys gracefully appeared. I noticed them, with gratitude, but I just couldn’t write about them.

Until today, when I looked up and saw that sky, and those clouds, and that jet, and it sent me to my journal, and to my laptop, and here I am, writing again.

I think Mom would be glad.