The cat, in a shocking oversight, allowed me to sleep till 7 a.m. this morning. So I woke up to sunshine and blue sky and a cold Sunday morning wind.

Yesterday the three of us went on a long, blustery walk into the Fore River Sanctuary, where tidal creeks snake among the salt marshes, where remnants of ice bulge and crack like doughnut glaze over the hummocks of dry grass. It was cold and we walked fast, and we saw airplanes and heard cars and trains and barking dogs, and yet I felt oddly alone, poised on this slim strip of land, among these ancient mud lanes, filling and emptying with the tides.

The day was quiet: all three of us at home, none of us dead-set on getting stuff done. But this morning I need to grocery-shop, and then we've got a walking date with a friend, and later I've got a zoom-date with another friend. And of course there will be football, though Paul will have to sling pizzas while his team is (probably) losing the AFC championship.

The days slip by, as a fox crosses a city street at midnight . . . a narrow shadow, swift and intent, vanishing into the darkness of a garden.