Day 67: 13 January 2026

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 Reflection


I’m feeling nostalgic
about: how my flat smelled like home,
crossing icy fields in winter and dusty fields in summer,
stopping for a latte and seeing the same barista every Sunday after church,
ordering chicken from the meat counter,
weighing out chocolates to buy at the grocery store, 
greeting Saint Mary of Egypt every Sunday morning,
and seeing all the different colours and patterns of scarves that women wore to church,
filling up my plastic 2 litre bottles with water at the machines found everywhere.

I’m missing:
reading with k through second grade students in the morning,
literature and drama classes with the high schoolers,
doing dismissal at the end of the day.

I’m remembering
how: the elevator in my building would sometimes take people all the way to the top floor or the basement no matter what button they’d pushed,
the only sometimes announced ahead of time power cuts or water turn offs,
the winter flyers were put in all of the mailboxes about what to do in an air raid…

And I’m praying
that the war on Ukraine will end soon,
and that someday I’ll be able to show my husband and son what a wonderful and beautiful place it is.



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