Today will be a workday: Teresa and I are going to do final prep for our upcoming zoom class--a complicated prospect, given that participants will have individual packets of materials, not one common set of sources. But working with Teresa is always fun, so it will be a good morning. Then, after lunch, I'll take my car to the tire shop to get yet another slow leak repaired . . . because what is life without car trouble? I hope I can squeeze in a walk too, or at least time on my mat, though as far as I know we're not going out for dinner tonight. T and I talked about it vaguely a few days ago, but neither of us did anything about reservations, so presumably New Year's Eve will be a regular slow evening at home.

Last night I made vegetable soup with wild mushrooms and farro and a salad of roasted sweet potatoes tossed with diced clementines and lettuce--a wholesome everyday diet after the holiday wallow. Tonight I'll do something or other with Arctic char and maybe roasted kale, and for New Year's I might put together a chicken curry with homemade naan.

Otherwise, what am I up to? Rereading a Le Carre novel, chipping away at a poem revision, doing my housework, trying to get my accounts in order, ducking away from the news hammer, sending little text notes to my kids, petting the cat, folding clean towels, pouring coffee for T, trundling forward in this plain working-class/artist-class life we've woven, trying to glean a few lessons in hope and charity, trying to be honest and dogged and even light-hearted now and again, despite all.

It is the last day of a hard year, in a hard decade, with a hard year on the horizon. Still, the fog over the cove is so beautiful at sunrise, and in its cloudy embrace winter seabirds ride the tide.