Ten.Seventy-Three

1. This shade of pale pink rose in the sky.  

2. The tomatoes. I don't know what to do with this last bunch. I may need to move the pot to another spot in the yard where the sun will hit it sooner in the day. I forgot about the shift in the light.  

3. I have to untangle the hoses and attach spray nozzle before I can wash it off. But first I take a picture, realize that the "y" in You is written backward. Yes. This must have been a child. No, it doesn't really make me feel any better. 

4. I am grateful and surprised by the support and shock and anger. I wonder if maybe I made too big a deal about it. But then remember that my writing is about my truth. And the truth was/is that it still bothers me that someone, even a child who is incapable of writing their "y" the correct way, would write something like that on my driveway. I just hope I never have to see something like that again.  

5. Once, in middle school we got off the bus to see portions of the sidewalks and windows covered in brown kraft paper. Overnight, someone had vandalized the school. It had been covered in swastikas and racial slurs. This would have been in 1997 or 1998 in the small, but growing, tobacco town of Kernersville, North Carolina. 

6. Which makes me think of the young boy in New Hampshire with rope burns around his neck.

7. Which makes me think of the fact that I'll be driving through New Hampshire alone. Which makes me also think about the other articles I've seen lately about racism in the northeast.  

8. Which makes me wonder how one is supposed to feel safe.  

9. He keeps asking me what's wrong. I say nothing.  

10. I play soccer with him as the sun goes down. Try to look at his face instead of the glowing orange sun as it sets behind the berm. Try to focus on this smile and the roundness of his cheeks.