Soft morning light coming through the slats.

Not a sound. I hear only my own footsteps and the chatter of birds.

Bacon and biscuits. I scramble an egg for myself. Drink orange juice while I stir with the rubber spatula. It’s still just the two of us awake.

The best thing about summer is when they figure out how to sleep in.

We make the tart crust. I haven’t made crust by hand in so many years. I hope it turns out okay.

She talks me down off the ledge. I avoid the shame spiral. I draw up solutions, invision best-case scenarios, land on the language of what I want to feel instead. Generative. Yes.

It’s coming back.

The more I do, the more I feel my way into the calling. This is a dream that’s never left.

They call me on speakerphone to ask if she can come over for dinner. Of course. I decide we’ll eat at the big table. I gather the dried baby’s breath and the wilting crown of vines and set the table.

Semantics. This is the power of words. As important as the words: context—the context of the work, the context of the life of the person who is engaging the work. Does a person have the ability to see where their personal context lays a filter over the work? Furthermore, what is “bad” and what is “good”? Depends on context. Maybe too many years of study has me living in only gray. Nothing is black and white. There are no clear-cut answers.