The quiet of the dark. But I am not alone for long. The oldest is the first one down and he heads straight to the fireplace.

I offer bacon plus whatever carb they can find as a breakfast. I suppose I could have made hash browns too but my mind is too clouded with other things to think of something so easy.

What day is it?

I wish that it wasn’t this way. But I buy what I need to buy because this is the only place to buy it from.

More pants for them. The cooler weather is here to stay and we are woefully under-dressed. I’d thought we would have been gone by now and some school shopping consisted of only summer wear. Rewashing the same two pairs of leggings for her is getting hold. And the biggest one has finally blown out the knees of the pairs of pants he did have.

Bright sun.

It’s in talking to her that I witness how I dance with my own shadow. I think of the stories that are looping, the incomplete projects, the ways in which I undermine my own success. How am I working with fear right now?

Chicken noodle soup to soothe the ache in the back of the throat. The kids think that this version is a little too salty but I’m chuffed at how much it tastes like my childhood. Must not get sick.

I like that now the easy choice is the only choice.

The Sacred No.