Morning chill has become a pattern, and so I close the downstairs windows now, before I go to bed. It's a loss, after a summer of early-morning breeze and birdsong, but snug also, to sit quietly in the small solid house as darkness leans against the panes.

It was good to go out to write last night. I haven't been doing much writing on my own lately, what with editing and travel and the reading of proofs, so I hope last night's scrawls will help bring me back into the world. I have to do some editing today, as well as laundry and exercise and such, but I'll have space for my own words too, and I need to find them.

It's been such a week. The news of my son's engagement has sent tremors . . . of happiness, of course, but elegy is inevitable. Thirty years ago I was weeping with fear and exhaustion, overwhelmed by the demands of the tiny life in my arms. And now here we are.