It's supposed to be rainy for the next few days, but I'm having a hard time telling whether that means occasional drizzle or actual measurable precipitation. We need the water, so I'm hoping for downpours, though yesterday's soft weather was lovely, and I'll miss it. The evening was so mild that Tom and I played cribbage outside in the gloaming, and I left the windows open till bedtime.

My days trundle on: exercise class/editing editing editing/cooking and laundry. Yesterday afternoon Paul and I did go for a meandering bike ride together, and maybe a hiccup in the forecast will let us go out today as well. Or maybe we'll be staring out the window into the wet.

I'm slightly blue today: a bit of extended-family uproar, worries about friends, a sudden sense of being invisible in my profession . . . this last is not something that usually bothers me, but now and again I feel a pang. 

Now, though, the rain is beginning to patter against the panes. I will pour myself another cup of coffee, and I will walk through the darkened downstairs rooms and put them to rights: straighten pillows, pick up dishes, push in chairs, stack books, change table linen, open shades . . . the little tidy routines of daybreak: realigning the sticks in the nest, soothing my jangled eye, offering myself a small and very local sense of purpose. I am the person who folds the blanket. I am the person who washes it.