Attention is the beginning of devotion. The poet Mary Oliver wrote that. Another writer, my favorite Buddhist priest from Sierra Madre, lives this: What you pay attention to thrives. That is Karen Maezen Miller.

That Friday morning, I was paying attention to my worries. It was Cheeky Baby’s graduation from junior high, from the school she’s been beloved since she was born. I was fretting.

I didn’t trust myself to do a good enough job, so we were splurging on a salon trip to get her hair styled in casual beach waves. I took a breath and decided I needed to look more presentable too. Ah, the budget.

The lei we ordered had yet to be delivered. I needed to plan for the beach party to celebrate Firstborn finishing his bachelor’s degree and Cheeky going off to high school. Oh, and where can we find a reservation for dinner after the ceremony? Are we on schedule?

“Deep breathly,” I tell my daughter, and we laugh. An old family joke.

I didn’t understand why she stood up, until I see her approach a tall, blonde lady at the door of the salon. She motions to the seat she just left, smiling. The woman gratefully accepts, murmuring her thanks, and how nice it is to see young people be kind.

“It’s no trouble,” my 14-year-old says, still smiling.

The woman turns to me and captures my attention for the next lovely moments. She is Joan Whitenack, she tells me, and it’s been awhile since she’s had time to visit a salon.

She just celebrated her great-granddaughter’s elementary school graduation. She and her second husband Ray have seven children, 12 grandchildren and eight great-grands and they keep them busy.

They also travel. And she paints, a passion she discovered at age 71, after she retired from her work as executive director of the nonprofit Foothill Unity Center in Monrovia and Pasadena.

She remembers Foothill Unity Center’s earliest days, 17 years of growing it from a small food pantry serving families in three cities to what it is now, a regional center offering more than just food, serving almost 4,000 low-income families in 11 cities.

They help people in Altadena, Arcadia, Azusa, Baldwin Park, Bradbury, Duarte, Irwindale, Monrovia, Pasadena, Sierra Madre, South Pasadena and Temple City.

Joan says she remembers lean days when she would pray: they had no money for pencils. Minutes later, someone would walk in with a box of No. 2s. “I don’t have any use for this. Do you?”

There are miracles everywhere in everyday moments. Things work out. Everything will be OK.

I am ashamed that my worries about paying bills and throwing a good enough party are the worst of my anxieties.

Joan waves that away: Your children are thriving. Everyone is fairly healthy. You are trying to be useful. Do the best you can and leave the rest to God, to the universe, to all that is sacred.

I pay attention until Maureen, the stylist, calls me to Alicia’s side. Her long hair is in pretty ringlets, but not the beach waves we wanted.

“Don’t comb it out until later so it lasts longer,” Maureen says. Alicia smiles her understanding.

On the way to her own chair, Joan pats her shoulder, “You look beautiful now, and you will look even more beautiful later.”

So many stories and so many miracles around us, all for the taking when we pay attention. The breath-catching realization that your baby is growing up kind, the sweet luxury of a salon shampoo and the smile of a lovely lady in the seat next to you, saying everything will be OK.

Anissa V. Rivera’s column “Mom’s the Word” appears in the Pasadena Star-News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Whittier Daily News, Azusa Herald, Glendora Press, West Covina Highlander and San Dimas/La Verne Highlander. Reach her at Southern California News Group, 605 E. Huntington Drive, Suite 100, Monrovia, CA 91016 or by calling 626-497-4869.