What I’ve been Doing on My Days Off

I’ve been resting and gathering myself and also starting a little girl in kindergarten, selling a once-beloved beach house, studying death and dying, writing papers and getting grades, taking my last swim (probably) in Lake Superior, loving the lake I have (Lake Michigan), dancing to music from a new toy record player, searching for the purple shirt, reading emails from the teacher written entirely in Spanish, wondering if I should sign up for Spanish I at the Rec Department, thinking about taking riding lessons at Steppingstone Farms, writing a long essay (for me) called The Guys and Gals in My Death & Dying Class, writing Postcards to Swing States (for Wisconsin), showing up as part of the leadership of a new Disability and Aging Advocates for Crowley (running for Governor in Wisconsin), surrendering my ungainly and quite ugly office lamp to Goodwill, turning on Paw Patrol every morning, taking the same little girl to a family grief program where we had pizza and cookies and made things with pipe cleaners, and sitting on the back porch at 6:30 every morning drinking coffee with the old man and our ‘ward’ to count the birds on the wire overhead (today there were sixteen!) and wait for the cardinal to appear which he or she does depending on whose turn it is that day.