11. 3pm

Here is a particular kind of delight: it’s a gloomy afternoon and you’ve just accomplished arduous task of doing the week’s grocery shopping. You lay down on the couch with a book (words grip you in a way they haven’t for a very long time). For a little while, you turn the pages, but then the house is so perfectly quiet, and the blanket draped over your legs is deliciously warm. Your breathing levels out like a meditation, your mind is delightfully unmarked, and finally the whoosh of the heater…

Where was I again? Oh, it’s been forty-five minutes. Well, that was nice, and look—the sun is finally breaking through the smoke. 

(Oct. 24)