Antsy

One week. Two weekends. My test is coming up, and it's looming bigger and bigger in my head like the giant ball of stone chasing Indiana Jones out of the ancient temple that it doesn't seem like he can escape. i'm getting up earlier and earlier and and pacing the apartment on my second cup of coffee by the time you get up and see me wringing my hands in the living room. i tell you the colors of the sunrise and you tell me the colors of your dream; both with reds and yellows and dark blues. as your steady hands hold a warm cup of tea you watch me flip through Norton Anthologies and casting them off like orange rinds- british literature, american literature, romanticism, chaucer, poetry...

you make me stop.

put the books down.

breathe.

get in the car.

you play fleet foxes. the last time I heard them was in Yosemite, driving up to Tioga pass to get in the park every day before climbing. My hands relax in my lap. you begin to whistle along to "helplessness blues" and "sim sala bim" and my back releases tension. i begin to hum "bedouin dress" and my neck relaxes and my head rests on the car head rest, squishing my messy blond ponytail. i close my eyes and picture domes rising up as we round the corner and the pine trees open up like a christmas present.

i begin to breathe.

we get breakfast burritos, bursting with eggs and cheese and i ask for guacamole in my burrito and guacamole on the side and i eat all of it like i forgot to eat last week and why thank you this tastes amazing may i please have some more?

we go to another safe place, surrounded by books and the smell of text and glue bindings. I get a pumpkin white chocolate-filled coffee drink, able to focus with less and more distractions around me as you sit next to me reading magazines and novellas. once in awhile you look over and smile and wait. patient. willing my nerves to slow on their own just by observing your aura.

our field trip comes home, and now i'm taking study breaks to stretch and seam and remember that sometimes the most important thing isn't that i know everything and feel overprepared...

the most important thing

is that i

take

time

to

breathe.