My day so far.

Up. Still dark.

My black cat purrs; an incessant, unrepentant alarm clock.

Mr. Coffee needs cleaning, so I drink instant, while I run vinegar and water and then just warm water through. Clear away the cobwebs. Clear away the fog.

Email. Check.

Facebook, briefly, check.

Tea.

Breakfast.

Morning walk, flustered, breathing hard. 

The altitude’s still affecting me. My lungs burn and ache.

Return home, drop jeans jacket on the floor. Change into sweats. Take the dog out to pee.

Check the real estate listing for price of terrible shack seen during walk.

$155K. Tiny. Only nice amenity: laminate floors.

Realization that everyone else who bought in my area in the last three months paid more than I did.

#lotterywinner #lotterywinner 

Make lunch of chili and buttered sourdough toast.

Discover well-hidden vomitorium on poor beleaguered sofa.

Don’t know how my cats manage to throw up on six different surfaces simultaneously, but they do. Work to keep my lunch down, as I wipe up the disgust-inducing mess.

Back to grading. Back to housekeeping, reminding, grinding away.

Send an email reminding students their work is due to the wrong group of students. 38 in all.

Send a mea culpa and an ‘oops, that was a mistake,’ immediately.

Choose photos for course e-Portfolio for my creative writing course.

Write the introduction to the assignment which will feature work by my students in creative nonfiction.

Answer more email.

Take the dog out to pee.

Again.

Stand in sunlight, marveling at that vast, unfettered blueness.

The trees, ardently green now, stretch themselves and hang their heads in the slow light. Water glistens on the ground, leftover from last night’s storm.

I am riding this dragon into a new life.

Sometimes, I cannot find solid ground.

But, I remember I chose this and I am OK.

I finally sit down to write.

I feel the rightness of it, whether what I write is good or not.

When I write, I fall through the page.

When I write, I discover I have something to say.

When I write, time grows still.

Finally, I hear it. I hear my ragged voice, rising up.

Yep.

I’m still here.

© 2016  Shavawn M. Berry All rights reserved

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