Hello darling, spectacular day today, otherworldly even, I was unexpected witness to extravagant joy, exuberant seasons ringing, concatenating, climaxing all at once together. I stepped out onto the porch this morning, sun golden and radiant, air surprisingly mild - torrid even, soft insistent breeze moisture-laden and tropical. The green garden is strewn all over with brown and gold leaves, the enormous ash in undressed tatter. Yet roses as ever are in wild pink bloom, as are salvia and coral zinnias in voluptuously leaf-littered beds. Blueberry bushes in the pen have turned scarlet. The sun poured through slate sky, insouciant of dark glower.  Off-scene chatter of birdsong carried above wind that stirred chimes hanging from eaves into harmonics. Then, even as the sun shone, it began to rain, a lightfilled shower, and it was a rare pleasure to stand on the sheltered porch, marvel at the downpour, and act as doorman as one by one the three cats scampered down the drive and up the steps to come in out of the rain. The screen door is still up, into which Penelope months ago cleverly clawed a 'pet door' for herself - so each cat in succession, each hesitating a moment as though diving, jumped through the gray torn mesh from one solar dimension, to solarium other.

Dearest you, I wonder how your week is going, or maybe it's more than a week, maybe you're back for good. Or visiting up north. Who knows. But I hope things are going well with you. I think of you.

D & I finalized our paint choices for the stairwell today, and I liked coordinating, or rather collaborating with him on it. There was almost a glimpse of our former good relationship, a sense of working on things together, towards a shared vision, mutual easygoing accommodation to improve our mutual home. I once read, in a lighthearted and well-written English mystery novel (I don't recall which or by whom), of a comfortable husband-and-wife team, one of whom observed that for them, the real business of marriage had to do with decorating their home. A sentiment I readily responded to at the time, and remember to this day. There is a lot to that, for me - without going overboard or all designery, just making the domestic spaces as comfortable and inviting and pleasant and delightful as one can, over time, including with the patina of use, and familiarity, and a certain degree of wear. But also of continual tweaking, a sense of keeping things at the very least nicely maintained if not extravagantly improved, including small touches such as fresh flowers here and there...

I did some online research today as to paint colors, and discovered a new line of tints whose chips aren't even in stores yet.  I'm going with 'Terrazzo Brown' for the bottom half of the stairwell in part because, in a rather clever marketing concept that intriguingly attaches to each hue an evocative line from a potential narrative, the shade reads, The earthy tiles cooled her feet as she entered the solarium for her morning cup of tea. Which would downright creep me out in its uncanny resemblance to me - were it not that I drink coffee and don't go barefoot. But how many women have earthy tiles in - let alone a space I've long dubbed - the 'solarium'?

(I've selected 'Cappuccino Froth' for the upper part of the stairs.  Taking the first sip of the frothy beverage, she felt warm and content on the cold winter day.  Comfortable shoes helped.)

Darling, I won't go on and on tonight. I had a wonderful day, with a walk after the rain ended.  The sun stayed out and it was in the seventies like summer except that all the leaves are slipping down. I didn't manage a workout, but I did at another point lie down and have the most exquisite and amazing time with you, it just blows me away, and I'm glad that even on such an unusually warm day the windows have been closed because sometimes I just come to a certain point and it's a precipice or a cartwheel or an inversion and I think of you coming and that's actually, when I can get it to that point, that's what puts me over too - coming together, that fusion, in that moment that something overtakes each of us and with exquisite incredible abandon we fuel each other and both let go -

And then I'm just so happy happy happy, and I leap up and go about doing all my little rounds around here - today, so comfortably, in the buff for a spell, it was just that blessedly mild.

And now I'm up in the aerie, sipping pink wine from a glass, tapping keys, chastely dressed in a between-seasons stylish outfit (nice to dress for myself - I'm wearing a bit of perfume too), and I think of you, and - my darling, I'm throwing my arms around you, as though we could have a moment to ourselves in a darkened corner away from all prying eyes - and kissing you full on the mouth etc. & etc., and all the rest...

Have a wonderful evening darling