Calculations

A friend remarked to me earlier that she had tallied up the sum total of her wins and losses this semester, and in the end she seemed to come out behind.

I am familiar with measuring my life this way.  This self deprecating math.  Three points for success because I did my laundry and I took notes in class today and I'm not too worried about finals.  One point for failure because there was an inaccurate fact in my editorial.  One correction trumps three trivial wins so the week is at neutral.

I am good at measuring time.  I'm good at deadlines and countdowns and keeping track.

But I haven't been as good at it lately.  Measuring minutes means measuring them in reverse as well.  It's been nearly 6 months since I've been back in Alaska, and every few days I unzip the top pocket on my backpack looking for chapstick and find a handful of coffee beans from the afternoon that Balqees took us to Salt and Fathme bought coffee and the shopkeeper gave all of us handfuls of coffee beans to smell.

I pulled up the countdown clock on my dashboard a few days ago. "GOING HOME" was counting seconds 165 days in reverse, and I replaced it with "going home."  Eight days from now, a softer trip.

I hadn't stopped to calculate any wins and losses since it was mentioned to me earlier.

Win: I still have the coffee beans.  Loss: They don't smell like much anymore.