I stood in the garden with wet hair and no one asked me anything for four minutes

Dear Delyara, The amount of relief I felt in those four minutes was almost embarrassing. No one called my name. No one needed a decision. No one asked if I’d seen the school letter, found the charger, answered the message, ordered the tablets, checked the weather, or remembered next Tuesday. It was only cool air, damp hair on my neck, one blackbird on the fence, and that beautiful plain silence that feels less like emptiness and more like the world forgetting to need you for a second. I think there are women walking around every day who do not need grand escapes nearly as much as they need four untaken minutes. I had mine this week. I’m writing them down.