A Sabbatical

this is what you need

I’m wearing a dress. Weird. There is a tornado warning where I am (a coffee shop in Memphis) and I imagine if the Death Swirl manages to cross the Mississippi river and suck us in, we might go up with the beans and land in a field in Arkansas. A sack of beans, a sack of bones. Weird.

There is a cup of coffee on the long community table, untouched—a laptop and a backpack beside it. Maybe the owner didn’t want to be a sack of bones. Maybe the owner is the god of tornadoes and didn’t feel like revealing themselves today. Maybe.

I am taking a sabbatical. My therapist didn’t even ask what I have been calling it (I have been saying retirement) she just said, What are you going to do with your sabbatical? Adelaide said that is better, a sabbatical, because retirement would be trickier to give up when I inevitably return to the work slog. So, I am taking a sabbatical and so far, so good. I am taking long walks, writing, reading. I have not finished a book of fiction since June—that cold and rainy Oregon month a thousand years ago, so that is what I will do. I have a stack of books from the library: Kim Stanley Robinson, Isaac Asimov. Fantasy is for grieving, a sabbatical of its own.

Two weeks ago I went to the lake for the last time. The air was warm, the water rolling—I could’ve been convinced it was summer. It could have been a good time for a swim, a cold swim, but I sat there instead. I opened up a packet of ashes and let Anna go. It is a reason to return, if ever, if anything.

I will probably head out west again, I tell everyone. Which is true, though who knows when again will be. I have more ashes to let go of in Oregon. The ocean, Sky Lakes, the garden. Sometimes when I think about returning to the Pacific Coast, I worry about tsunamis. I remember Anna saying she would live as close to the ocean as she could, so when the Big One came it would take her out right away. Take me! She said laughing. It was worth the risk, the ocean. And if you survive it, well that is something to write about. When I think about that I am not so scared. She has always made me brave.

I wish this wasn’t me, I told someone. (Moving from one place to another.) This is what you need right now, they said. To move, to have friendships full of trust. Friends who know you will come back. Places you can return to. Not forever, but for now. This is what you need.