Next Week's Plans

We will take field trips to the backyard and

name the leaves and

freestyle this whole

preschool learning thing.

Next week, we’ll try the beach or

the zoo, unless they’re delayed

a few weeks or

even a month or two.

Then the week after that and

the week after that,

I’ll turn my back and

let the screens do the parenting for me.

(And are these chunks of

hair I keep losing in the shower

from stress or

that bad at-home dye job from last week?)

But here I am now,

praying for a hurricane to

break up the monotony of

home and heat and sun.

Even a shoreline as beautiful as

the Gulf Coast cannot

help me feel like I’m escaping

this viral trap.