Hello my dearest, my day was in the doldrums a bit, in that the wind never caught the sails. D had promised me the car at some point in the afternoon, and I thought I might go to Olana to find a birthday card or little present for My Friend in Finland, but D's day didn't go right, and he didn't get back til five, but no matter, not at all, I'll simply go tomorrow, my days are pretty fungible that way. Maybe it worked out just as well, by the time I got D's text msg that he'd be late, I'd woken from a short nap, after a couple of hours of moseying around the kitchen tidying and cooking, and what I hadn't had at that point in my day, after a beautiful walk in the morning, pleasurable reading (still) of the E.D. biography, was beautiful time with you, my fantasizing settled pretty firmly today in your treehouse to which you'd made a special trip. Anyway, it worked out, much to my relief. And now that windows are closed (the days and especially nights are getting chilly), I feel no hesitation in letting it all out however I wish. Amazing, the involuntariness of it, that precipitous moment. I never (or rarely) was so loud, but now maybe feel less constrained. I wonder if my vocalizing is actually tied up with it? If I had to keep silent would it still work? I think yes, and yet the vocalizing - it counts, it's another aspect of expression of that other dimension. Still, if you and I had to do it on the fly someplace, very quickly, in a dark corner, when others are out of the house, someplace else, and by some miracle we have been left alone together, or perhaps you come to me in the middle of the night, creep downstairs to the narrow sofa where I've crashed for the night - I don't know if I would come, maybe I would, probably would be the whole time - in some ecstatic state no doubt - but certainly I could be quiet, whether or not you gently place your hand over my mouth and muffle my exhalations with your warm beautiful self, rearing and exclaiming on your own. Darling, I hope I'm not writing or needlepointing myself into a corner, I don't intend on being lurid & out-there on every post. But still, today was a quiet day, and - well, for how little went on - this writeup is reflective. I for one am glad for my cerebral double life - my life, for me, would otherwise be intolerable. I'm so glad that you found me, and that I found you.

I'm having trouble winding up this post, restlessly tweaking words. I just wish if we ever do meet again in a crowded room that somehow we manage to have a private moment to ourselves, if it's only to go out together in frigid early morning, before anyone else is up, an hour when in that house you can hear the clocks ticking, and you know how to disable the alarm, and we slip out the back, bundled up in our winter coats and simply stroll together and enjoy each other's presence and maybe nothing happens we barely even touch except for hands brushing now & then, as if accidentally, or you hold a door open for me and touch my back to invite me to pass through. We return to the house and someone else has been up and started coffee - or perhaps it was us - yes it was, we stand there in the dusk kitchen listening to the coffeemaker burble & drip - no, actually we're spared those noises because we were organized to set it going before we set off for our walk - because as it turned out - the milk in the fridge was off - had curdled! And so we were back from an errand whose fresh wax-carton result would gladden all the adults and coming-up progeny who detest taking their coffee black.

Many many kisses, darling.

image: William Morris (1834-1896), detail of the Woodpecker tapestry, 1885, William Morris Gallery at Water House, Walthamstow, London (full-image & interesting writeup about the tapestry, here)