Hello sweetheart, the most glorious day imaginable, sunny skies, warm temperatures, like a reprise of summer, yet more welcome to me somehow, drier, without the burdens of needing to water the garden - a gift, no strings. The place reminded me of California today. Treeless State Street in Hudson reminded me of certain bleak, blocky neighborhoods of San Francisco - so long ago for me now, what was the name of the street? Clement? And the name of the n'hood escapes me. (It's a city I would enjoy revisiting.) So I drove down State this morning, dropping D off at his worksite before I headed off to the Persian-inspired estate, and the buildings were white, and the sky was blue, and there was even a trolley car, which sort of completed the San Franciscan picture (though in the neighborhood that I'm picturing, there weren't cable cars, but rather, as I recall, electrified buses).

Pleasantly tired, dearest, collapsed in my seat a bit, after a full day. I'm just back from a walk, I had to get one in. I'd managed a workout yesterday but (in a very rare omission) no walk; today, vice-verse. And I came this close (mentally gesturing with my fingers) to skipping the walk today, but do you know, it must be my age, not to mention my fondness for French pastry and pink wine - but I skip a customary workout or walk for a single day - and I feel the creeping adverse effects. Though it could be psychological. But I do need to be quite vigilant about exercise.

I have a lot of time to exercise, since I don't hold down a job anymore. And weirdly, I felt hurried and behind things today, simply because I'd spent last evening out and this morning too... so as of midafternoon yesterday's CSA haul was still sitting in bags on the floor, the sink was overflowing with a couple of meals' worth of dishes, etc., etc. And it was only getting more daunting, as the afternoon wore on. But I needed to run a few errands too, after lunch, buy a fresh set of sheets for our houseswap guests. I wanted to "buy local" from a shop that I love, from which I often buy remnants to sew up for decorative touches around the house - I thought they were more discounted than I discovered - $200 for a set of sheets. Exquisite sheets, to be sure - but - yeah, no way I'm spending that much. (Exact same material, too, a pale-green ticking stripe soft cotton, from which I've sewn up numerous pillowcases on my own - at $1 per pound for the nice-sized remnants.) So, albeit reluctantly, I ended up at a big-box store, and found 400-thread count plain white cotton sheets for $40. Very plain, but they'll be fresh & clean & new for our guests. Which after they leave - I have a mind to put those sheets away for another year, for their return. Ah, but I don't want to go nuts on this issue - I'm sure those sheets would just yellow, unused, so perhaps best to use them.

So darling, after all the epiphanies and flights of fancy - yes, today was a day, the afternoon at least, in which I had to attend to quite worldly mundane concerns. Now too. In another window I'm contemplating which train I'll take down to the city on Thursday. D's going to stay in town up here & work, and I'll do a bit of a city-visit, and this whole upcoming escapade, really, is my way of trying to reciprocate for all the times that our friends have so graciously invited me to catsit for them. I wish to be able to return that favor in some fashion - they love the country too, so that's what this is about. Only, in my druthers, as happy as I am at the prospect of their enjoying a weekend here - I'd just as soon stay put, and D too... Still, it will be okay, and this upcoming swap has been a great occasion & excuse to try to refurbish a few minor cosmetic touches around the house, and D's going along with it. So then - fresh sheets & towels, new toaster, new coffeemaker, repainted entrance door, redone (I hope) stair carpeting up to the aerie.

Darling, have your eyes glazed over yet? Sorry my sweetest. I did have - as always - a wonderful time at the en plein air writing workshop this morning, and scribbled a few pieces, which aren't my best, and yet - I'll take a look at them tomorrow morning and perhaps type them up for posting. It's funny, I had a very hard time hard-core "communing with nature" this morning - but other stuff came out instead, sort of a hybrid between analytic & heartfelt. Manana, on that. The tiny cast of characters in the session today was slightly different, one woman, plus the guiding-spirit writer leading these sessions, along with two gorgeous young people, in their twenties - full of the bloom of youth & healthy strong good looks. And the young man has a touch of poetic genius, his off-the-cuff scribblings were gorgeous, flowed like water, reminiscent of Whitman - more controlled though, I would say, less all over the place exuberant - deft - very striking, at any rate. Though perhaps I'm not doing Whitman justice. Honestly, I haven't read that much of him. I love moments of his writing, fragments, but sometimes I find his wholes too much. This young man's writings started, and ended, like a river.

And someone who couldn't attend the workshop today, but was at last week's - and who I liked, or responded to in a simpatico way very much - sent word that she'd like to try to organize a writing circle among us like-minded souls. If it could work out, with the right (more or less) cast of characters, and timing, I would love to participate in a circle like that.

But it has to be right, a setting in which I, and my writing, don't feel judged. I felt that way today. Kathe (the instructor, a brilliant, unconventional writer herself) asked me about my blog, and I felt very comfortable telling her about it, that it means a lot to me, and, I'm convinced, to you... and that's fine with me, and it's been a gift, and I've found out so much about myself - that I was never a diarist, or journal-writer or (not so far anyway) a novelist, but I love writing letters to specific someones whom I love... like that...

And you know, she got it, I know she did. I don't expect her to be interested in my blog - not in the least. It's just the little space I've created that works for me. And it's out there in the blogosphere like Poe's Purloined Letter.

Anyway, you've heard that speech before - I know.

And so darling - well, here you go - even this post was about process, a bit, sort of like the housework I had to do. Which I didn't really mind doing - but it's funny how hard it is to keep on top of everything, when - well, what am I trying to say? When I'm trying to maintain a certain free, open life of the mind (which D resents, mightily - the flightier I am, the more down-in-the-mines he is).

Look, it's not easy. We all chatted, before the session more 'formally' got underway, about Occupy Wall Street

What I just wrote - it's just one story, of all the stories upon stories, of the 99 percent

Many kisses, dear you, I hope you are well & happy and didn't wake up from a terrifying nightmare (if that was you with that eloquent pagehit early this morning), or if it was you - then I'm glad you told me

well, anyway, darling, let me go
I never let you go, not really
but you know what I mean