The sky is soft this morning, the fog tender.  I am tender. Perhaps it is that my mother would have been 92 today.  I feel her here.  

I look up meanings of the word tender since I feel a tiny boat chugging in my heart, softly content to create a gentle wake, a simple hum.  

Tender can mean to offer something. It can be a little boat or a boat that attends to other boats.  I suppose we’re all boats in our own way, floating along, separately or in a flotilla, alone, and not, connected in an ocean of air.

Again this morning  I learn of a death. A good friend’s mother passed, and yet in preparation the family has been gathering sweetness and shared memories.  I see a bouquet of hearts, a rainbow in the tears. 

I’m with this softness in my heart, like a balloon, or parachute, or maybe an Angel’s Trumpet flower.  Maybe it’s simply a pool open to offering what comes to me today, soft as petals falling, and trumpets calling.

I’m reminded now that at my friend’s house high on a hill overlooking San Francisco bay that various neighbors go out on their decks and blow trumpets at sunset.  It’s like a call of birds, each one in a certain order.  

There are so many ways to honor passage, so many ways to stir our insides with the nourishing taste of love and care.  This morning for me, peace stirs the air I share.