It’s been a month of writers’ block. Maybe writer’s procrastination is more apt. I have no excuses. It’s not that there hasn’t been inspiration. It’s everywhere.

It’s in the heartbreak of my son telling me he knows his Dad better than me, which I understand means he likes his Dad more than me.

It’s in the boost I get when this child chooses a walk to school with me that includes the promise of a story, over a ride in his grandmother’s car.

It’s in the opening day of Little League, in the freedom once again granted to younger siblings to have the run of the park, a dirty dozen of boys and girls tearing through patches of ivy, finding stray tennis balls, climbing over landscaped boulders, sneaking to the snack shop and returning with chocolate ice cream smears around their mouths.

It’s in the feeling of ocean air, clear and soft and cool, swirling over cliffs, through trees, and around the fields to find me and my husband on a stolen moment, walking out of the park while our kids are minded by other trusted adults our neighborhood has gifted us (thank you Kelsey, thank you coaches), toward a pocket park with a view of the beach below.  I stand on a bench and look down at the people on the sand. I hone in on a woman smart enough to take herself to the beach that beautiful afternoon and can feel what she does as she walks at water’s edge where a wave has just receded, the sticky coolness of glossy dark sand. The first stinging cold water replaced through a gradual adjustment, a reminder that you are alive and connected to sea and land.

I’ve been in a cranky mood in recent days. No need to delve into why’s. It happens. To the best of us. Let’s chalk it up to times of transition, where uncertainty is in charge.

I think of that cold ocean, the one I reluctantly dip my heat-loving toes in, which quickly becomes the one whose swooshing foam I crave around my ankles and calves.

We acclimate. I pinch myself, say “Remember gratitude.” Oh yes, gratitude. It comes only when I pause, turn off the noises and distractions – which describes most things I waste my thoughts on any given day. Here, on this cliff, I stretch up, breathe in. I shake the grit out of my cranky, creaky places, leave it there for the wind to erode and scatter. I take my husband’s hand and get back to the kids of spring. It’s time to play.