Morning light.

I empty the dish rack. Only three more days of this, I hope. Bacon and eggs for breakfast. I forgot to get avocados.

I turn a laundry basket upside down to hold my coffee while I fold my laundry. I take the coffee back to the kitchen and pour it down the sink. I don’t have to finish this. There are very few things I need to force my body to take when it doesn’t want or need it.

Gratitude for the slowness of the morning.

Once sun moves behind the tree I am chilly again. I put my sweatshirt back on and drink from the big mug of Tulsi to the sounds of baseball in the background.

She says that he almost never gets a hit and of course, the one time he does she didn’t record it.

Warmer. But still enjoyable in the shade. Fall is coming. The leaves on the trees are beginning to brown in some places. There are a string of 100-degree days before the temperatures cool down again. I am looking forward to coffee on the front porch.

I catch myself thinking, “I am really enjoying my family right now.” I’m not thinking about work or the retreat or how stressed I am or how my throat is still a little soar. I just am thinking about their smiling faces and how much I love them and how this is how I’d like to feel all of the time.

Don’t forget to call her tomorrow.

I think of the stories he told me about work. About how he realized that with only a few more years left to go before he retires that he’d go down swinging. That he was going to make his company accountable for actually living the values they claimed to uphold. How he realized he needed to be a stronger advocate for the other black people, people of color in his organization. I think about how I can do that in my job now. How comfortable can I become in making other people feel uncomfortable? Or, what can be my version of that?