The Fox at Dawn

November 6. I can’t even write words. I am absolutely destroyed. Panic is pummeling my poor heart, it can’t keep its own rhythm. The best I can do is remember to breathe. All day long. I will breathe.

November 7 Instead I will write of 7^th grader Coleman checking to see if I’m alright, his kind smile in the hall. I will write about the smell of rain after a long time without it. Of the cookbook I pre-ordered months ago and that was just delivered last night “Comfort Bakes”, just when I needed it. I will write of the middle school Duloc performers in the all-school musical Shrek and how they killed it in rehearsal, how on task they were and how much they remembered from their last rehearsal over a week ago. How much they have grown in so short a time. I will write of how 5^th grade Liam managed to cut his clothes to actual ribbons while making shadow puppets in drama class without anyone seeing until too late and how his mother, when told, just smiled and shook her head ‘I’m not surprised. He’s unmedicated today because we ran out last night’. I will write of the positive energy, vision and material help of Ash, my parent volunteer costume coordinator who is moving mountains for the 117 costumes we need for Shrek. I will write of how astonishing it is to have so much help from so many different quarters, All I had to do was ask, all I had to do was say what I needed. I will write of my daughter’s tears, and her friend Anna’s and those of my very dear and thoughtful high school drama students- I find hope in their tears, knowing that their fears, sorrow and anger will become action in time. I will write of how much better I feel not having news alerts ping through constantly on my phone. I can be in control of what I read, listen to, react to. I can remember to breathe. I can be joyful, sitting on the front porch of the school telling stories to the 6^th graders turning cartwheels as they wait to be picked up from rehearsal.

I will gather sweetness. I will savor it. It’s all I can do this day.

I tell you: Suns exist.