Hello dearest. Up in the aerie, with another fresh spinach pie in the oven. I have felt unusually tired and achy today, perhaps from spending several hours in the car yesterday. Also feel unpleasantly scattered. For example, I assembled the pie using several sheets of phyllo. I carefully re-rolled and bagged the remainder and put it away. Where? Minutes afterward I cannot find it anywhere, not in the fridge, freezer, etc. What on earth could I have done with it? This is how it's been for me unfortunately all day. I took a walk and didn't have the energy to go at my usual brisk pace and do handweight exercises. Still, I did get out there, and it was nice to stroll around the park, watch swifts flit, glimpse a bluebird, hear a trill and say back - hey there bluejay.

Reflecting on an aspect of the Emily Dickinson show, a scholarly exhibit at NYBG library gallery. The exhibit was small and compact, ranged mostly in glass display cases around a small, hushed and softlit room. There was also a very cool computerized facsimile of ED's childhood herbarium in which you could turn the pages of her pressed-flower scrapbook simply by passing a hand across the screen. I would have lingered over her beautifully composed pages but - lucky me! - a facsimile hard copy of her herbarium is waiting for me on the reserve shelf at the library. I can hardly wait to get it home, peruse and consider it at my leisure. I am fascinated with the idea that ED (artistically, all of a piece) had a graphic sense as well.

Anyway, back to the gallery exhibit. In the room was a pleasant guard. He was unobtrusive and he struck me as intelligent, actually engaged in his gig, enjoying it even. After I stepped away from the computerized herbarium (not because I wasn't interested) he himself turned a couple of pages. It was nice to see a guard who - without for a moment neglecting his primary duties - evinced a genuine regard for the art he's guarding. (You know, the more I think about that idea, the more profound it strikes me.) There was also a friendly and, as I discovered, unusually knowledgeable guide, an older woman who while balancing herself on crutches (such was her dedication) valiantly announced her availability to answer questions gallery visitors might have.

More tomorrow, must now go downstairs to put flame under leftover broccoli-rabe pasta and feed meandering quartet of cats. Very many kisses - your Viola.