I hate it. Something is delightful, funny, stunning, or mesmerizing, and I’m not ready. I don’t have my good camera, my phone isn’t convenient, or, by the time I grab, open, and swipe to camera app, it’s too late. It’s over. Dammit. Capturing the moment can be a challenge.

This week, I missed some great ones while I was mowing. The snake that slithered across the yard and into the water hollow. The panicked field mouse scurrying through and over and under the tall grasses and weeds. The frightened rabbit that popped out of gardenia-bush nowhere and hopped-stopped-hopped-stopped her way to another bush.

Grrr. What fun a video, or at least a photo, would have been, even if it didn’t give the moment justice.

When I stopped mowing and parked my butt-in-chair to write, I found a surprise flipping through my morning pages. The pages were from February, an unremarkable February 3rd. The surprise was that I had captured that morning. Not with my Motorola camera app. With words.

Nearly every adult in this country has a cell phone with a camera, and many of them flood the ethers and clouds with digital images from “delightful, funny, stunning, or mesmerizing” moments in their lives. But I’m not a photographer. Not a digital influencer. I write.

A snippet captured in my February 3rd morning pages.

My neighbor is smoking a cigarette on his back porch. The sun is up, but the light fog hasn’t quite lifted. The concrete table is in its new place, and I’m sitting at it for my morning pages. The table is cold under my arm, the concrete bench is hard under my butt and legs. My feet are chilled on the brick. I’m closer to the birds exploring houses and taking seeds from the feeders. Nearer the fog and morning light.

I can still see my fish and hear my waterfall from here. I’m chilly and, maybe next time, will wear a robe and slippers.

I would love to see the bluebirds up close, but I don’t fret about getting closer. I would rather smell flowers and incense than cigarette smoke, but I’m not anxiously waiting for that smell to dissolve into this new day. I take peace in the familiar. I’d rather be warm than cold, but the cold concrete and bricks don’t give me anxiety. They are a gift of awareness.

It’s all perfect.

The sun tiptoes over the arboretum hill, the fog is going home, and light is catching the dew on the weeds, grasses, and leaves.

There are a lot of things I don’t like in this world, yet the sun’s rays find their way to the morning, cast pen shadows as I write, and deliver just enough warmth to keep me here.

There will be things I cannot fix or control this week.

I’ll remember this peace on an ordinary morning, with a blend of beauty and discomfort, permanence and change.

I captured that moment with simple, unpretentious words. Reading them, I remember the burdens and blessings that waltzed on my heart. Mostly, I remember why I write.

The snake, a billowing black scarf held by the long, slender index finger of a maiden sashaying toward the woods; the mouse, a spry lightning sentry, navigating crag and moor to warn the others; and the bunny, a regular-looking citizen skilled in the art of espionage and distraction, leading the enemy away from the safehouse.

When I read these words about today months, even years, from now, I’ll remember the places I turned and the spots of shade as I mowed, the flood of unsettling and grounding memories of Mom mowing these yards, and the tissues of my heart fraying and knitting at once knowing how quickly things slowly change. How lucky am I, capturing life’s moments with words?

©Pennie Nichols. All Rights Reserved. 2025