Seven degrees this morning, the coldest cold we've seen yet this winter. In Harmony I would have been stoking the stove in a bone-chilled house. In Portland I listen to the furnace kick on. It's easier, but I do miss the stove as the center of life, the magnet. So much work--all that tree cutting and dragging and trimming and splitting and stacking and hauling. But for so many years nothing was more important than that fire, not even water. We could haul containers of water from elsewhere, if we had to--and we often did. But we could not stay alive in that house without the stove.

And now we live the city life. I take exercise classes instead of hauling wood and shoveling shit and mowing acres of grass. It's disheartening, even though I know my aging body couldn't have kept up the strain.

Still, there are benefits . . . like the leisure to just be outside without having to do work. Last Saturday we went for a windy walk along the old Sebago canal bed. Today I doubt we'll venture far. Our plan is to try to go skating tomorrow morning, but it will be too cold today to enjoy the ice. If I had a functioning oven, I'd bake something. However, I don't, so I'll drink a lot of tea instead, and read, and probably dust, and hang out with my boys, and eventually make pork chops for dinner.

Last night, while I was cooking shrimp and making potato salad, I listened to Beethoven's third symphony, the Eroica. The night before I listened to Otis Redding. I'm beginning to consider keeping track of what I'm listening to, as I keep track of what I read, in case I happen to notice any intriguing links. I do love a random trajectory that turns out to be less random than it seems.