In the dream we walk up to the school and the principal greets us outside the door and walks us in. The school is situated at the foot a mountain and everything around it is tall and green. The school building is red, like a barn, with white trim and large windows. I have a good feeling about it. We walk through and sit in desks and she asks me about my son and I tell her that he’s actually a very good student but that I think he needs something different. But then all of these older kids come into the room and they are talking over one another while also trying to present a project and I look to my son and ask him how he feels about the noise level in this room. I can barely stand it. I want to like it but I can’t.

Still quiet.

I remove the leaves from my hair and find flecks of gold scattered across my forehead and I’ve stained the edge of my sweater orange from the stamen of the lily.

I cut up the old cards, rip up the old receipts, move the Kaiser cards to another slot in the wallet. I make space. I can’t shake the desire to clear out every bit of space before the new year.

I can’t tell if it’s snow or clouds that look like mountains.

Hawk on fence post. An odd combination of sheep and cranes sharing a field.

Cinsaut from a vineyard planted in 1886. My favorite by far. Mostly likely due to the age of the vines. Everything else has such muted fruit. But this is fertile soil; this is a place for production, not precision.

I hate the feeling of having made a mistake even when you haven’t made a mistake.

“The thing about life, Harry had told Lauren, was to live in the world with interest. To keep your eyes open and see the possibilities—see the humanity—in everybody you met. To be aware. If he had anything at all to teach her it was that. Be aware.” - from “Trespasses” by Alice Munro

What is this fear? It’s that I might be committing myself to something that is actually nothing at all close to what it is my heart longs to do. It’s that maybe I spent too much time afraid of a dream and now it’s too late.