The road is spread out before you.

Aretha Franklin is playing on the radio and the sun is shining.  You've finished grading all your papers.  They lay in neat stacks on your office desk, just as you left them.  Each file has been put carefully back in its place and your computer has been turned off.  Your mind drifts back to the evidence of your industry, but can't linger there for long.

Your thoughts move from emails and lesson plans to the possibility of a long walk or an afternoon yoga--but even there, you cannot linger.  Your mind doesn't want to focus on anything except the sound of soul in your speakers and the smooth sailing of your car as it cruises down Montgomery. 

You let go of your professional to-do list as Aretha Franklin makes way for Otis Redding.  The mountains take up all the space in your view mirror and the rest of the day stretches out before you. 

You are half tempted to keep cruising down Montgomery, just listening to music and breathing and being--far enough at least to see the river and the Bosque, and maybe, if you're lucky, the faint promise of spring in budding trees.  But your body wants to move.  It wants to dance and wiggle after a day of focused movements, so you turn home, lowering your music as you go, and slide your car into its space.

Somewhere between revving your engine in the school lot and parking your car at home, you've moved from teacher to simple human being.  You shake off the last of your day as you lock the car and carry your teacher tote inside, mind already on the roasted vegetables for dinner.