I went out to write last night, after missing last week when I was in Vermont, and my brain-hand-heart consortium was so glad to be back at work. I haven't reread anything yet; it may all be vapid scribbling; but I'm please to have a few busy pages waiting for me, when I can find space to greet them.

Today is recycling day, sheet-washing day, and, to my surprise, finishing up the editing project day. I did not think I'd get this manuscript off my desk before leaving for New York, but somehow I managed to pound out the hours, and by this afternoon I'll bid it farewell.

And it didn't rain yesterday, and possibly it might not rain today . . . what is this new world? Of course it will definitely rain all weekend, but still: four warmish days in a row without a smidgen of drizzle? What luxury.

Last night in the car Betsy was telling us about a time when she was wailing to her husband, "When I will I ever stop being unhappy?" And his response was to say, gently, "When you feel gratitude." On paper that exchange looks banal, like the most annoying sort of Encouraging Words™, yet in Betsy's voice I heard the simplicity of it. Misery is centered on the "I": "I don't have what I want," "I dread the future."  Gratitude is the "I" is looking up and away and beyond the "I." The exchange was not just smarmy self-help speak. It was a way of framing Keats's negative capability.