Ten.Three Hundred & Seventy-Seven

1. I see two stars glowing yellow-orange. I remember from last year that one is Mars. 

2. I finish getting dressed and download the star app onto my phone so I can identify the other star but now I can't find it. There is too much light. I look up and stare a little longer. 

3. I think about how grateful I am for his interest in the sky. Whereas I'd always been focused on the light, I now have an appreciation for the way the atmosphere comes alive at night. 

4. Before I get to the list of things I must do I take a seat in the alcove and read. I hear my neighbor yell, "We've got a deer!" She's back. I go inside the house and run to the back window. I see here up on the hill, the same front fight leg bent from last year's injury. And then I see a fawn bound into the trees. She's OK. In fact, she's more than OK because here she is with new life again.

5. I drive all the way to the grocery store and realize that I've lost my wallet. I turn around to go home. We have a showing scheduled. This brightens the trip back just a little bit. 

6. He tells me that he feels like I'm panicking. 

7. It won't be perfect. I can't make it perfect. And the house will still sell even if I didn't get everything perfectly right. 

8. The three of us on the front stoop sitting and drinking wine. I watch and listen to the sprinklers in the yards. Cars drive past slowly. One car more slow than the other. This car stops right in front of the house. I try to hide behind my son. I am disheveled, in painters clothes and black. We are always removing blackness from the house so that when it shows, it's not a deterrent to a white buyer because maybe, probably, that really still matters. But I can't hide my grown up body behind a 6-year old. They wave. We wave back. 

9. I continue to watch the sprinklers and we finish up the Firesteed Pinot Noir and it's actually much better than I remember. This one got 91 points. It is better than I remember.

10. One showing cancelled. Another one scheduled. I don't know how long I can last.