Savor

I've been getting to work long before dawn.  Yesterday, having arrived in the dark of night two hours or more before the kids would come in, I was surprised at their shouts and giggles about seeing a double rainbow.  In my little corner classroom, my nose to the grindstone, I hadn't even realized it had rained.  And I had missed the rainbow.  A double.

I rush home after school to my amazing family.  I want to sit for hours on the deck, knowing our remaining nights out there are few in number, but grad work demands my attention, and so I reluctantly go inside, forsake further conversation and read outdated materials about issues still unresolved in our schools.  

I head to bed far too early, but sleep and I haven't been getting along, so I will be awake far too soon.  My husband is asleep, but he wakes and listens to me vent about the nonsense that compiles my every day right now.  I talk too long, I keep him up too late.  I solve nothing.

This morning I wake too soon, but I linger.  I offer Flash a ride not just to the bus stop, but all the way to school.  He thinks it's just because it is on my way, but truth is, he will be gone so soon.  I need these moments.

I stop at the coffee shop, for our favorite fall treat, and buy mom sister a hot caramel apple cider.  Her days have been like mine lately, she could use a smile.  I stop to drop it off, give her a hug, share a laugh and pull out of her drive.  The most beautiful sunrise awaits me at the end of her drive.  I pause and watch for a moment.  Around the corner, the view is idyllic-cattle in the field, barns in the background, the sun painting the sky.  I pull my car over and savor.  

A favorite song plays on the radio as I drive the few remaining blocks to school.  "Waited all summer for the time to be right just to take you along..."  As I pull in to the parking lot, the sky still hazy and sleepy-eyed, rain starts to fall on my windshield.  I get out and let the sprinkles fall on my face, searching the sky for a rainbow.

I didn't find one today, but I know it was somewhere.  And just knowing that I was present in the same moment, slowing down to savor the morning, it is enough.

It is more than enough.