097

During the summer months, it was easy for a single teacher's house to transition from a comforting retreat into a self-imposed prison. On the weekends, I still got out to see my friends, and otherwise there was the occasional errand to run, but as time passed, time increasingly lost meaning. Grocery shopping was as likely to happen at 3 AM as it was during daylight hours. It was liberating, in a sense, but simultaneously disorienting. One year I had managed to land a summer school position to help keep me grounded, but the others, I had needed to adapt on my own.

One of those adaptations had been Baxton Park. It was a decently sized public park, mostly a softball field and open grass but with a few pavilions and a wooded area at the east end. Squirrels and birds were in abundance, along with the occasional sighting of a raccoon or a hawk. One day, simply to be out of the house for a while, I took my lunch there and ate it sitting on a small grassy hill overlooking the field, leaning