My dearest Branwell, up in the aerie, musing about you. You're not an effaced pillar to me, I know that you are a Vitruvian man, in possession of a full range of faculties and sensibilities. Touching your hand. Very much love. Kisses, from one smoldering volcano to another.

***
Accepted an invitation this morning to attend a party downriver this weekend. I've never visited with them before. I'll take the train and spend the night. I just hope I don't get cornered into a marriage counseling intervention, as last month - I put my foot down at that time. I have mixed feelings about going, but felt I should, that it wouldn't be a bad idea.

I'm at low ebb, a bit. It's after five, still light out, but fluorescently gray, like a black and white TV image from the 1950s. Radio's on low. Penelope's asleep next to me, Claire's on the chair. She has taken to yowling vociferously when she's finished using the box. Don't know what that's about. I yell inelegantly down the stairs, shut up Claire - and she does. It's pretty funny. I guess she too just wants to be noticed. Walked today at the conservation area, ran into the charming elderly man with his floppy dog, and we exchanged greetings. Haven't seen him in a while. Otherwise had the place to myself, snow up to my knees, hard to walk on, except on the path, pre-trampled so very walkable, which I was glad for. Stopped by the supermarket afterward. Baby spinach, feta, parmesan, flour tortillas, plain yogurt, cat food. The tulips on my desk, and elsewhere in the house, have had it - time for fresh flowers.

Do you like dogs? You seem like more of a dog person to me, maybe. I've never had a dog really, don't have a lot of experience with them, but I feel very open-minded about the idea of having one one day. I've encountered so many charming ones here and there. To be honest, I never thought I would be so much of a cat person as circumstances have led to my becoming. Just sort of happened, creatures in need, and they're very companionable, not a lot of work.

I wonder how you're spending your week. I hope you're having a good time, doing something that "feeds your soul," a phrase that crops up on KZE - "music that feeds your soul." Yes. Here's another kiss for you, darling. John Coltrane's playing, What's New. Aaaahhh. Intoxicating musical perfume... which I hope one day to wear again...

Thinking about the impending visit this weekend, and about my marriage. I suppose from a Catholic point of view it's viewed as a failure - simply because it hasn't lasted forever, but I don't see it that way at all. I mean, I'm in the midst of a problem, conundrum right now, don't quite know what will happen next, what to do. But I don't feel that the marriage "failed" because it didn't last forever. I'm seriously very grateful for the twenty happy years. I think that's a huge - what? accomplishment? achievement? those words don't seem adequate. I'm just glad that I had twenty years of my heart soul and body (in a Vitruvian way) being all quite well-aligned in a happy union. I didn't feel tormented for twenty years. That's fantastic. So now I am. Well - things change. And I'm absolutely okay with that, I really am. I was saying at the table how in some ways I've never been more unhappy and that simultaneously in others I've never been happier. Yeah. But mostly I feel - if not happy, then really positive, and optimistic, and hopeful, and fairly confident that if I continue on this path, things will work out for me, most likely in ways I can't even possibly foresee. A marriage ending? Well, okay. But parts of me had been buried. And I see other doors opening, in myself, for my future... That's a good thing. That's why I don't want anyone looking at me with pity or disapproval or that it's rocking their world that I'm not going to get the Good Attendance award of permanent marriage someday. That's their ethos - and fine, I respect that - but it's not mine, and that should be respected - I feel.

My darling gnat, so I have babbled on and on here to no avail, wishing very much that you and I could be together. I stopped by the library today, and came away with a beautiful cookbook on seasonal Hudson Valley cuisine - with sumptuous full-color photographs. The book fell open to a page on tagliatelle bolognese, a very rich, hearty, earthy, smokey wine reduction meat sauce, that we could savor with a glass of a big fat red.

Many kisses, darling.