5 a.m.

Coffee and quiet, except for the dehumidifier in the basement, which has recently started growling like a wolverine. Probably it's about to die, but so be it. I found it free on the street three or four years ago, and it's already outlived all expectations.

Today will be yet another desk day--two editing projects to juggle, class planning to start--but I'll take a walk before I buckle down, and I also hope to go out to the salon to write this evening. I'm overwhelmed with work: too much, too much, especially with that New York trip looming and all of my travel up north. But I'll get things under control somehow; and no doubt, in the not too distant future, I'll be complaining again about being underemployed. The freelance cycle always functions by extremes.

Anyway, for the moment things are peaceful. I'm sitting in my couch corner in a tidy tiny living room. The teakettle purrs, the clock ticks. I'm not yet reading the news and collapsing into the vicarious horrors of the humankind.

[And I think over again]

 

anonymous Inuit poet, translator unknown

 

And I think over again,
my small adventures,
when with a shore wind I drifted out
in my canoe,
and thought I was in danger--
my fears,
those I thought so big,
for all the vital things
I had to get to and reach.

And yet, there is only one thing,
one great thing--
to live to see in huts and on journeys
the great day that dawns,
and the light that fills the world.