Waiting, a different kind

I dream now in shades of celadon and yellow; I see armies of tissue-paper cherry blossoms marching onto branches I've collected. I am on Google Images all the time. To my normal collections of nightmares--the teeth falling out, the inability to run--I have added: food poisoning the night before.

Tonight when I walked into the kitchen, my aunt and mother turned to me and said, "Guess what you'll be doing three months from now?"

And sometimes, like right now, the planning and the checklist and my 200-row Excel spreadsheet fade away and I'm suffused with a glow of anticipation, with an excited feeling and if I could just get through the next few months. And I know good things are ahead.