Sunday morning, the tail end of October in the little northern city by the sea. At this hour the living room of the Alcott House feels like a burrow, a winter den--crowded and warm, turned in on itself. I haven't lit a fire this morning, but last night's heat lingers, and outside, beyond the tight-shut windows, the murmur of traffic could be wind, could be ocean.

I spent yesterday morning in the flowerbeds, the afternoon shopping. I am an unenthusiastic shopper, but am sometimes driven to it . . . in this case by a dearth of presentable work clothes and a sudden urge to make our living room less grey. New throw pillows: the cheap coverup for shabby furniture. And I'm just now remembering that I dreamed there was a giant hole carved into the wall. Apparently decorator anxiety is getting me down.

I'll be teaching this afternoon, so this morning I'll putter through some house stuff: move firewood, clean bathrooms, figure out something or other for dinner later--probably involving leftovers from the leg of lamb I roasted last night.

For the moment, though, I'm wallowing in Sunday morning--the treat of two cups of coffee instead of one; no rush to get laundry into the machine or the kitchen cleaned up after Tom's flurried breakfast. Here I sit, cozily tucked up against a new throw pillow, thinking about the Muriel Spark novel I just started reading (her first, The Comforters, from 1957), thinking about the poem revision I'm working on, feeling pleased that the Phillies beat the Padres in last night's playoff game, fretting slightly about the logistics of today's class but in a harmless, non-angsty way, happy to have the garden cleanup under control, suddenly remembering that I have a lot of flower bulbs to plant this week, wondering if maybe I should do some of that this morning, worrying a little over the dying tree that needs to come down . . . What a pedestrian mind I have! Always bumbling around among the potatoes instead of soaring into the firmament.