It’s been a hard week. Memories of Peter. Missing Peter. Not understanding grief’s complexity. Students anxious about their grades. Me micromanaging students’ actions to ease what I perceived as chaos but was just thirty happy students.

Overwhelming noise. Just a cacophony of voices and music and footsteps and zippers opening and shutting. Footsteps on linoleum floors and endless door knocking as students returned from the bathroom.

And bodies. Everywhere. I. Columns and lines moving I the opposite direction of how where I needed to hurry to. Frenetic motion. Just get from one floor to the next in five minutes. must use the bathroom in those five minutes but it’s being used and the time is counting down and I have a lesson plan that I shared with my cooperating partner but we haven’t photocopied it and it turns out that more students are doing better than I had through because I was only thinking about isolated students. But they all have questions for me and I can’t process their questions because of the hive of noise and activity. Because it’s the end of the nine weeks and we’re preparing for a four day weekend and I am paralyzed by the noise and activity and I can only think about the quiet solitude of the mountains. But I’m an hour away from the mountains and my bum knee keeps me from doing my favorite hike to my quiet place.

In desperation, I took off Friday. And I ignored and abandoned my original decision to write letters of recommendation because I couldn’t think and ran to the mountains where I literally grounded myself in the meadow and felt the earth beneath my fingertips and stopped thinking.

No noise.

No activity.

No people.

Just the earth and the sky and the wind gusting lamb-clouds across the stratosphere.

Just my dogs staring at a tree shedding its leaves and the cold wind brushing my skin and pulling my hair away from my face.

And then the return home to spend the afternoon in the quiet warmth on my back deck while my skin still shivered from the memories of the wind.

And then yesterday. A pilgrimage to my would be future that ended in gentle and loving no’s and gluten free pepperoni pizza. An evening spent in my comfy chair until fatigue lured me to my bed and Figgis the big dog was so tired that he let me sleep in until 9.

Today is a semi-colon day. Not a full stop. But a day of transition. I muddled through my hard week and arrived at Sunday. A cool rainy Sunday that is peaceful and sprinkled with gut laughter because I built my first Fake Lego set and added Harry Potter figures because it’s funny. My Fake-Legos have light bricks and when I turn off the lights in my office and hook up the set to a power source, I just start belly laughing which feels so good and cleansing.

Tomorrow is a half day. I am thinking about spending the day at work. Catch up on various projects that I have been neglecting. And then Tuesday is professional development day and I will attend and do my best. And I will stay the entire day but I am realizing that my grieving journey is private and does not care for large groups of people.

I don’t even know if I will attend Thanksgiving or Christmas with my in-laws which is nothing against them. I love them and have such deep appreciation for them. But I just can’t handle crowds and noise. I yearn for a quiet mountain creek and bird song.

Today is a day of laughter. Of games and Legos and more laughter. A day with my Beloved and our dogs and a cool mist as the next stage of fall gusts down the road and strips the trees of their leaves.

Today is not a full stop. A pause. And then the story continues.