I stared out the window, the tops of pines golden in the early light. A mysterious sight, a dab of different color caused me to stare.

A pine branch must’ve splintered and the light color must be the underbelly of the bark. Then, I looked again. The object was gone.

I concluded it had to have been an owl or a hawk and naturally, that led to even more romanticizing this enigma in the trees.

Mid-morning, I looked again. With a baby on my chest, I discovered the object was a balloon that had gotten tangled and deflated and the wind had it dancing in and out of my sight.

Then, I began to get excited.

My granddaughter’s butterfly balloon had escaped her grip and “gone up to heaven” never to be seen again.

She arrived home with her mama and before I could tell her, her mama spotted it.

A hurried gathering of jackets began and I listened as she asked, “I gotta show you something, remember us asking God to help us find your balloon?”

She nodded with a smile that said she knew the surprise already.

Then baby boy and I watched from the window as they struck out through the hay field to the very back corner, a valley.

From a distance, I saw my daughter grab a broken limb and somehow dislodge the tangled ribbon and the flattened balloon.

Then, they took the long way back around the field, the walk I call “around the block”.

I asked my daughter, “Was it the butterfly?” anxious to join them in the mystery, the answered prayer.

“No, it was a Valentine’s one from who knows where.”

I watched my granddaughter, ever the listener as she quickly announced that it was hers anyway, just not the butterfly, it was her Valentine balloon (imagined).

She decided it was worth celebrating, special and unexpected even if wasn’t exactly the miracle we thought.

And then she moved on to something else, balloon adventure forgotten.

This morning, I discovered a pretty word I love and had big plans for I may have misused or slightly made wrongly “mine”. (I do this.)

Resonance.

I suppose it has nothing to do with feelings and mostly with science.

Like my granddaughter, I think I’m gonna think differently and decide on my own.

I don’t know why this happens. I decide to pull out the beginning pages of my long ago decided memoir and I go to the library and I run my fingers across the familiar words and the tenderness is so tender, I begin to cry.

I’m not sure what this means.

I’m not jumping to any conclusions as to whether it means close that door or throw every window and door back open. Step back in and don’t ever pack it away or fold it like a letter and seal the envelope forever.

It’s just an observation.

Library, window view towards the blue sky, laptop open, pages ready for pen and then…

Soft, never harsh tears.

I’m in the library, a place I love for two reasons though. My husband is painting cabinets and needed me not to hover.

More importantly, someone I know only through blogging is publishing her memoir and sent the manuscript to me. She asked me to read and endorse her book.

We’ve never met. I know her story and she knows mine through our blogs.

I’m forty pages in to her memoir which begins with a note to the reader, to women like me who’ve had their lives complicated by uninvited trauma.

Resonance.

An inaudible echo in my soul as I read her story, pause to be amazed by her knowing my feelings.

Resonance, a pretty word I love to decide is mine to choose sort of like the mystery balloon not being completely true and yet, choosing to believe.

Sort of beautiful really, the license love affords us to use when we decide life is and can be full and we fully immerse ourselves in the good, the bad, to the no way it’s true…we can choose.

I hope this is a soft echo for you.

Life lived fully known and open to the enigma of you and others who privately or not say “me too” adding to the resonance in ripples.

The echo of you.

Me too.

Continue and believe.