list making:

laundry tomorrow
Trader Joe’s tomorrow
packing tomorrow

Walk around the house to find all the little things we’ve left all over.
Finally finish going through my attic things. Or not.

Begin to compartmentalize so I can process the next shift from here to back there.
Begin to create home-improvement projects that can be done using only existing household materials.
Begin to dream about a new couch we’ll never get, a school desk for the girls, a new comforter cover.

Feel the impending squeeze of the four of us fitting back into one long room for the following 14 days.
Feel the pressure of driving through three states in a single day, again.
Feel the air around my body as I sit in this outside chair in an outside kind of place.

Start from where I am. Lost. Uncertain. Unclear what’s next, again.
Decide it’s August and September in Brooklyn. Start there.

Remember that when your friend texted “The Met. Can you imagine?” you began to weep, right here in this seat, an outside place made familiar, an orientation your body now recognizes as yours.

The hummingbirds squeak in the Japanese maple tree just behind me.
I don’t have to look to know it’s them.
I take the picture with my mind.

I’m sorry I was cranky sometimes.
I’m sorry I didn’t appreciate it all, always.
I’m sorry I couldn’t say exactly what I needed when I needed it.

Thank you, beautiful outside place.
Thank you, kind and generous family of mine.
Thank you, thank you.