Five a.m. walk
It is hard to believe how much the prairie can change in just a week and a half. The golden Alexanders and beardtongue litter the bike path with yellow and purple. Monarchs settle onto the tight buds of milkweeds, impatient. Birds of all kinds squawk and sing loudly enough that I can barely hear my own thoughts--which is a relief. At five a.m., and, after an hour of trying my best to overcome my panic with meditation and prayer, I finally get up and start walking, half-dazed, toward the bike path that will take me on a seven mile hike through prairie. The fog is thick enough in places to make the path feel most intimately familiar and completely unclear--much like the path I'm walking at the moment. For the last four years and two months of my life I have been battling my daughter's school practically daily just to ensure that she get a good education. I take that back. I had expected a good education, fought for it for two full years at the beginning. Then I gave in, took...