It's cold this morning--28 degrees--and everything damp from yesterday's rain-spatters has frozen up tight. I was glad to have a wood fire last night, and a warm bed. But today the sun will come out, the frost will melt, and brisk spring will return. I hope to take a long a walk. I hope to hang clothes on the line. I doubt I'll have time to scratch around in the garden, as I've got zoom meetings and housework to juggle, but one never knows.

I went up to Maine Med yesterday morning to visit my friend Jay, who was recovering from open-heart surgery. He looked better than I've seen him in a long time--bright-eyed, good color--and we sat in his room and we walked the halls and we drank the coffee I'd brought and he talked about poems and baseball and cardiologists and the Torah, only two of which I know much about. But I left feeling light-hearted, which is not a usual response to a hospital visit. Jay was so full of gratitude, so full of second-chance glow. And it rubbed off on me. I felt full of second-chance glow as I mulled the offerings of the grocery store, as I fell suddenly in love with two giant purple-and-green artichokes, each as big as a baby's head. Ah, I said to myself, and tucked them into my basket.

As sustenance, they were nonsensical. Tom and I needed 45 extra minutes at the table to finish them, but we did it, dipping each leathery leaf into yogurt sauce as the Red Sox managed to win a game in the background, as the fire ticked in the stove. Eventually we worked our way into the center, scraping out the prickly innards to reveal the massive heart beneath. All of this sounds like a metaphor, but sometimes metaphors are just what happens. I went to visit a friend with a mended heart, and then I fell in love with an artichoke and I ate it.