The furnace gently grumbles. My coffee cup steams on the table. The woodbox is half full of dry sticks, bits and pieces to burn up on a semi-cool evening. A pie pumpkin from Angela's garden sits on the mantle among the birthday cards. In the kitchen, dishes overflow with half-ripened tomatoes, and the refrigerator is full of carrots and beets. In the back room bouquets of herbs, flowers, and grasses hang from the antlers. There's no doubt: this must be the first week of October.

Yesterday went just as I expected it would, which is a plus (no Covid, no vet). I finished the housework, did the marketing, worked at my desk, worked in the garden. I made minestrone and berry cobbler for dinner. I listened to the ragtag tail of the Red Sox season. I sat by the fire and devoured a Kenneth Roberts novel about campaigning up the Kennebec River in the 1770s. I played cribbage and I fell asleep beside an open window.

This is a fairly unscheduled week for me. Though I have lots of work to do, in lots of different arenas, I'll mostly be dealing with it at home, and I'm appreciating that ease. I like wandering into my study to edit, then down into the kitchen to start bread, down to the clotheslines in the cellar, outside with a cup of tea to perch on the front stoop, then back again to my desk. I do my best thinking in this patchy way, and I'm relieved that the Covid fog has lifted and I am back inside my own rattly head.