Today is 1/11/2011. At 1:11 last night I was in bed asleep. At 11:11 this morning I was at the conservation area, making my rounds around the snow-covered trails. It's been really great there the last several days with all the thick white powder instead of last week's sketchy, slippery ice. Snowshoers and cross-country skiers have been out (I used to regard these as exotic winter activities but now though I don't practice either, they seem everyday), including a woman about my age and her elderly mother. The quite ancient woman appears to be in her late 70s at least - and she's the one on skis! (She strikes me as European, Balkan perhaps, as though she spent formative years in the midst of remote high mountain crags - and here she is now, determinedly making her way in a managed park, accompanied by her kindly, patient daughter.) I've been seeing the two of them and their dog every day for the last week or more, no matter the time of day I go. We exchange hellos and today I remarked to the younger woman - "you must think that I'm always here - because I think you're always here" - we're like daily recurring apparitions, or so it seems. She seems bright and friendly - I sense that I like her - a vibe. Well, uncommon people gravitate. Yesterday I ran into the two of them, and their little dog started barking wildly when it saw me - the younger woman had to restrain it. Later in my walk I crossed paths with them again, and the dog ignored me. The younger woman remarked with a smile, "Now that she's found a bone she's not barking - I guess that's what it takes." I laughed - and only a minute later - too late - thought of a response which I wish I could have instantly come up with - "yeah, well I know how I am."

Darlings, another snow storm is gathering for overnight, but things are cozy here, with a chicken and a pan of orange root vegetables (carrot, squash, yam) roasting in the oven. Have read a couple of chapters of the George Washington biography, and am reminded of a reason I was attracted to it when I read reviews - I feel as though possibly I'm getting a bit of insight into you, dearest 1.0, the way he was full of very strong passions and impulses that he carefully learned how to cover or screen, create a workable persona for; how he was at home both in genteel society and the wilderness; how in his early days he would venture out with surveying instruments and notebook and basically do a lot of little in-the-field consulting jobs. A little uncanny. I love you, sweetheart (always have), it's nice really, to read of one very human sounding man (the biography deals of the man, not the Myth) and to think, quite unexpectedly, of you.

I've been thinking of 3.0 too - are you in Poland now? Someone - or more than one person in Poland - has lit on my blog three times today from that Bonnard siesta image. Okay, I don't look exactly like her - she's taller. But from the back it may not matter so much, to paraphrase Ben Franklin. Close enough. Oh grrrr.

No, I'm okay, really. Still going over the tiny little seashell scraps of the amazing weekend when I intuited it was you. I know one isn't supposed to go through an entire Catholic mass in a cathedral so as to get to the part where everyone shakes hands and says peace. I was waiting for that moment, and sorry, I couldn't help myself, I threw my arms around you. That, possibly, isn't what that moment is meant for, is it? Darling - you see, I self-selected myself towards attending a Seven-Sister school - but for other reasons, prudently self-selected myself right out of the Catholic Church. But I would gladly attend with you any day, seriously - for the aesthetics of it, and the general message, the divine part (less so the social control stuff), and just to be with you. To be with you. Now a Beatles song is going through my head (or is it Lennon? or is it McCartney?) - to be with you -

Darling, you may self-select your way out of any amorous feelings you may have towards me when I tell you that - I think that the beatniks, and the Beatles, and John Lennon - they're the ones who had it right. I'm with them.

Love you, darling(s). Peace. Hugs. Amen.

Kisses.