The birds are lively — this is a great time of year for bird watching (or listening) as they have recently returned home from migration and are just emerging from winter survival mode. I hear them greeting one another. Attracting or locating a mate. Marking territory.

I hear a single-engine plane overhead and know that my husband was right when he said “today is a perfect day for flying” before heading off to work.

I wasn’t supposed to be here this morning. My goldendoodle Karis and I drive back to the small town we moved from last year every 5 weeks for her trip to the pet spaw.1 My normal routine is to go to the local coffee shop and read or write while I wait for her to have her bath and haircut. I was annoyed to learn last night that the coffee shop would be closed this morning for staff training.

But perhaps, I am discovering, this is better.

If this diversion had happened for our last appointment, it would have been too cold and rainy to spend the hour at the park. The timing of this more pleasant plan b is a grace.

Most of the time, I view a disruption to my plans and routines as an obstruction.2 But sometimes, it nudges me towards a more nourishing option that I would have otherwise overlooked.

Here, outside, with the sparrows and robins providing the soundtrack, with an occasional dog barking or car passing by to add texture and let me know that this is not artificially created background music.

This is not brought to me by an algorithm, but by natural rhythms. The rhythms of the seasons — here the awakening of the spring. The rhythms of people — at 9:30 am, most of the inhabitants of the house that edge the park are already at school or at work, so it is quiet. The rhythms of the elements — as the wind chimes singing their melodies let me know that the breeze has shifted. The silence that followed corresponds to the sudden stillness of the air. The increasing warmth on my skin from the sun is no longer being countered by the spring breeze.

I’m reminded of another rhythm. Just around the corner is the home where a friend lived. Eight years ago right now she was in hospice care with too few days remaining.

The breeze picks up again and keeps me from descending very far into memory and another wave of grief. The interruption is reinforced by the patter of a preschooler’s feet as he eagerly crosses to the playground. His mom hurries behind him, giving me an apologetic look as she notices my attention being drawn from these pages to the child. I smile back, no apology necessary.

I hear them playing a variation of peek-a-boo with him shouting from the top of the slide, her responding with laughter from below. Here is another rhythm that has been playing out for all of human history — a child making sure a parent is close by, watching, paying attention, looking for them. A parent responding with reassuring presence.

They move from the slide to the swing. The back and forth keeping time for the mother’s prosody, laughter and encouragement as she sends him away with a push and squeals of delight from both as she welcomes his return.

This is a grace — the gift of attention, of attunement, of sending out to explore, and welcoming back.

They wander mostly out of sight and out of earshot, but I am offered glimpses of their continuing reciprocity. He explores, trying out the playground equipment, climbing higher, running faster. She follows with interest, looking at what he looks at, only interfering with his process to maintain safety. Back and forth go the proclamations of delight and laughter.

With the background music of sparrows and robins, I’m witnessing a parent and child building a relationship. Not just any relationship, but a relationship that helps the child learn to trust himself enough to take risks. A relationship that helps the child learn to ask for and receive help, knowing that it will be available. These are the foundations of courage, the foundations for being brave.3

I think about my life, some projects in the works, some ideas that have percolating. There are other considerations, but what I need most to act on them is some courage and bravery.

I look over at the parent and child leaving the park, and I feel a twinge of sadness for the times I have not felt supported in the way I witnessed this morning.

But also, I am reminded of an implicit knowing that I can take risks. That I can ask for and receive help, knowing that it will be available. That I, too, have the foundations of courage, the foundations for being brave.

I whisper a prayer of thanks and imagine the delight of God as my annoyance at the temporary closure of a coffee shop has been replaced by gratitude.

Another grace.

The festival has something like 1400 attendees, and the schedule is packed full. In the span of less than 10 hours, there were opportunities to go to 7 separate sessions, if you participated in a lunch circle. The mind and body that I inhabit needed a little more time and space, so I opted to skip one of the morning sessions and an afternoon sessions. During that time, I walked in the brisk air, sat in a quiet spot, strolled through an art exhibit, perused books at the multiple bookseller tables scattered across the campus (and bought a few from them). But those were not the scenes that were replaying.

It was the chance to tell Leslie Leyland Fields that I have appreciated her work for several years, but that just one week ago, the metaphor of a halibut came to me while I was journaling. I knew that this metaphor was available to me because she had written about it in her book Crossing the Waters. When I pulled it off the shelf to check, I saw that it was the book that she had autographed for me at the Breathe Writers’ Conference in 2017, also held at Calvin, which is the only other big writing gathering I have ever attended. And I was so delighted when arrived here on Thursday and she was the first person I saw when I stepped into the exhibit hall.

It was the chance to tell Barbara Brown Taylor (@barbarabrowntaylor), as she was autographing my copy of her book Holy Envy, that her book Learning to Walk in the Dark was a helpful companion to me when I needed to learn how to navigate and tolerate doubt and uncertainty. At dinner with a friend the previous day, when I mentioned how much I was looking forward to hearing her give the closing plenary, he asked if I was going to try to meet her. I said I was not because I did not like the idea of standing in line with hundreds of others for a brief encounter. But I happened to passing by her earlier book signing of the day and ended up being the last in line of a short line, so I made the most of the opportunity.

It was the chance to talk to poet Todd Davis twice. First, in passing him on the stairs at one of the few times it was not packed with people rushing to the next venue. The second was another time I walked by at the tail end of a book signing and could say thank you for sharing a powerful story about Menno Simons and the way he lived out his values and telos, ultimately resulting in his death. I shared that I recently became more curious about Mennonite history and beliefs as it is part of my own family history and inheritance, and I appreciated being surprised by the way a response during Q&A connected to my own experience. We had a lovely brief conversation about paying attention, the way the stories we carry change over time, and the way we are changed by stories.

It was the chance to say thank you and give one last hug to Ryan Apple, one of my first friends in college, for being present during those early awkward days. Over dinner the night before, we were reflecting back on who we were and how we felt we needed to show up then. We caught up on each other’s lives sense then. We pondered how we are both the same and different now as we were when we first met 30 years ago. Earlier in the day, I had purchased In a Strange Land: Introducing Ten Kingdom Poets, a collection that includes some of his poetry, and he humored me with an autograph.

Laying in bed last night, I was overwhelmed with gratitude for these gifts throughout the day.

And I also realized that I finally knew what I wanted my first essay on Substack to be. I have been collecting ideas and even some initial drafts of essays to share on this platform for more than 6 months. But I have struggled with the actual start. And filled with the inspiration and encouragement of this great gathering of readers and writers and thinking, I have gathered up the courage.

With these words from the opening plenary by Robin Wall Kimmerer, replaying in mind, I knew how to start.

“Start with gratitude.”

Indeed.

As she describes in her book The Serviceberry, gratitude is an act of reciprocity. It is an act of giving back to a being who has given to you.

The tears that came last night were not those filled with grief and sadness and despair. They were filled with joy and hope and the warm, fuzzy feeling that comes with telling someone that their offerings to the world have mattered to you.

And carrying those gifts into the world by doing my own work allows their offering to be multiplied.

To all of those mentioned here, to the other speakers who inspired and encouraged with their offerings, and to all the other attendees who welcomed each other this week, thank you.