Last night's writing salon was lovely, as they usually are . . . Each week, everyone seems so relieved to be back at it, sliding into our few hours of intense and unexpected invention. It is a remarkable experience, this group.

So now I have my notebook blurts, and it is Friday: trash day, housework day, washing-sheets-and-towels day, talking-about-Donne-with-Teresa day, and editing, of course, and maybe beginning to play with one or two first drafts. 

The photographs of Maui are devastating. I look out at my wet neighborhood, placid and gray in first light, and shiver, again, at the tides of fortune. What could be, what will be, what is?

My what is washes up against me so steadily these days. Maybe it's my age, maybe just an overwhelming awareness of love. I know that sounds stupidly sentimental: but I am so aware, all of the time, of my steady household affections, of devotion to my work: the books, the writing, the coils of my mind; garden and kitchen and the tidy comforts of clean sheets and fresh flowers, of hands and smiles and voices . . . None of this is earthshaking, or vital, or lifesaving, none of it. But I am so aware of the deep pleasure of loving and of being loved. I suppose one could call it gratitude: more, it feels like Pay attention, pay attention.