Look at the beautiful terrarium I put together yesterday at a delightful workshop at Olana. I've always admired terrariums and it's the first one I've ever made. The instructor encouraged us to forage in woods and fields on our own for ferns and mosses that are plentiful here so that when we create our microcosms we make them our own. This one's for Emily. I wonder if she ever made one. It seems like something that would have been right up her alley.

I have been struggling with my mood since yesterday afternoon and am trying to pull myself out of a funk. I think I'm succeeding - I slept well, sun's out, and I'm back from a walk at the conservation area where I am newly observant of ferns and mosses; of leaves soft and thick underfoot; of kicking up fragrant damp; of new woodland growth, green, yellow, deep scarlet lobes and leaves emerging from littered loam even in November chill. I paused at the bench where I once saw you sit, the first time I ever saw you, the time I accidentally came up from behind because it was one of my first times on that path - I had just begun to visit there regularly. Today, further east on the same trail, I took a fork and stepped along a small berm to check out another bench. From the main path it seems to be randomly placed in the middle of the woods but in fact it is beautifully situated, at the edge of a ravine overlooking a creek which I hadn't realized was there, at the very spot at which a small plume of white water burbles down slabs of shale, running over the shallows. Wind rushed through the trees, and I looked at the gray and brown barked tree trunks all around and at the steep grades, visible now, rising up and crisscrossing on the other side. Most of the trees are bare, but to my left was a hemlock with long branches and bright tiny needles, green as an enormous graceful fern. I was bundled comfortably against the chill and would have loved it if you could have crept up from behind and put your arms around me. I would have clasped your hands, tilted my head to look up at you, and kissed you upside down like that. I'm smiling as I type. It's a nice thought isn't it?

The new Woody Allen's at 1:05, so I think I'll go. I hope you are having a wonderful day, darling, wherever you are.