Ten.Two Thousand, One Hundred & Thirty-Six

1. Where is the dinging coming from?

2. I stop by his classroom for a quick chat. He asks me if I’m here for the site meeting. Yes. “You do everything,” he says with a laugh. Yeah, I do.

3. I wish I had brought my tea.

4. I develop a plan for our plan. We just need to make it happen.

5. The strange glow of white light as the sun tries to break through the dense fog.

6. It was not as bad as I thought it would be.

7. Time is both slow and fast. I feel as though I’m missing something.

8. I can see the change.

9. Nine. And one is new, raw. But teachable. We can make room for them.

10. Trust yourself.

Ten.Two Thousand, One Hundred & Thirty-Five

1. Not ready.

2. Thank goodness it’s Monday.

3. He’s still sleeping. I hand them all plates of blueberry cake and give the big one a glass of orange juice, too. I walk on the wet asphalt with my slippers and throw my purse into the back seat.

4. He warns me that it’s decaf. I tell him I know.

5. What do you do with the kids who have the capacity but not the initiative? No answer.

6. Crossing things off.

7. I’m going to be late. I can’t let myself be too upset about it now.

8. I just need to trust my gut.

9. They are saying things, but I’m distracted by the thick streaks of pink-orange clouds bursting through the sky. “It’s just carbon,” he says. “I know. But it’s still beautiful.”

10. Funny, yet sad.

Ten.Two Thousand, One Hundred & Thirty-Four

1. Work-from-home Friday.

2. I know I have things sitting on the printer tray at work, but I’m not going in for that.

3. Thick fog weaving itself through the trees. A singular white light across the way.

4. It’s soon. So soon.

5. Toinght’s drive will not be so bad.

6. The competing feelings of contraction and expansion. I am bigger than this, and yet, I feel too contained.

7. But what is it that you really want?

8. Snack shack popcorn while sitting on a cold bleacher. This is the turning point in the weather. The first Friday night where some hot hands or gloves are needed.

9. Noticeably less screaming today. It’s almost laughable.

10. How is it already 1:00 a.m.?

Ten.Two Thousand, One Hundred & Thirty-Three

1. Slightly warmer day.

2. Decaf with a little bit of almond milk.

3. She says “third eye” and I know she is my kind of person.

4. I tell her it just feels good to know that it’s not just us feeling this way.

5. Conversations like these.

6. I tell her I feel like I’ve done something wrong even though I know I haven’t done anything wrong.

7. No saws or beeping cherrypickers today. Light work for them. Light work for me.

8. Unnecessary drama of it all.

9. Pulled pork, macaroni and cheese, coleslaw. He’s going to miss team dinners when the season is over. Can’t beleive the season is almost over.

10. Halloween Baking Championship.

Ten.Two Thousand,One Hundred & Thirty-Two

1. Must get up.

2. Not enough time to make the biscuits. He settles for waffles instead.

3. You’ve got to be kidding me.

4. The silence kills me. I keep moving through the items.

5. These forty-five minute chats once a week are everything.

6. “With all due respect.”

7. One tiny brown leaf floating down to my windshield.

8. A cracked chromebook screen.

9. Bored.

10. Twenty minutes in the dark. Still warm enough to break a sweat. Sliver of a moon. Silhouettes of mountains. The same came up and down.