Same rack. Same hand. No notes.

The oven rack got me again. Not in a dramatic way, nobody’s going to the hospital, I have not lost function in any fingers, and I would like to point out that I am a nurse and I am fine, but in that specific, humiliating way where you know exactly what you did wrong and you did it anyway. I was making toast. I leaned in to check if the bread was golden enough. My knuckle found the rack before my eyes did. It is July. This is the second time since June.

Same rack. Same hand. No notes.

I stood at the breakfast bar for a full minute afterward just holding my hand and staring at the toast like it owed me an apology. The coffee was steaming. The apartment was quiet. Jake’s on a late shift so there was no one to witness the moment except me and whatever version of myself has clearly not learned anything from the first time. I put a damp dish towel over my hand and sat down on the barstool and thought very seriously about my choices.

the toast was not worth it. the coffee is getting cold. we move.

Here is what I keep thinking about lately, and maybe it’s because I’ve been sitting with so much of the reflection work from the Fourth of July gathering, and from all the archive coordination with Margaret’s contacts, and just generally from a summer that has somehow become more emotionally full than I planned, sometimes the small stupid mishaps are the most honest moment in a day. No meaning. No lesson. Just: I burned my hand on the oven rack. The toast was fine. The coffee went cold while I sat there being dramatic about it. That’s the whole story. Sometimes that’s enough of a story.