I slept until almost 6 a.m., a triumph after a week of insomnia. Such a novelty to wake up to the sounds of neighbors being awake before me.

Now a gull flips past in the white sky. The air is very still. I am sitting in my corner of the gray living room, drinking black coffee from a white cup and saucer and considering with pleasure the unstructured day ahead of me. I want to walk by the water. I want to go to the fish market. I want to sew the neck facing onto a dress I'm making. Meanwhile, Tom is preparing for another plunge into renovation land: putting up trim in the kitchen and hallway. It will be that kind of weekend: sawing, hammering, admiring.

I've been rereading Kate O'Brien's That Lady, a tragic historical romance that I loved passionately when I was in my twenties. I've been roasting a chicken and making biscuits and gravy . . . I loved gravy passionately when I was in elementary school. Nostalgia Friday, I guess. Read a sad book about a beautiful Spanish aristocrat. Eat hot bread with sauce. There are worse ways to spend an evening.