P wanted to do the driving yesterday, so I sat in the passenger seat and was mostly able to relax. I'm still not quite used to the idea that he can handle a car, though I know that in real life he regularly drives cargo vans all around NYC. He is 28 years old, and I should be used to the idea of him behind the wheel. But somehow I'm not.

Still, we made it safely, even easily, to the homeland and spent an excellent evening with our friends: venison for dinner, chat about canoes and snow and the people of our lives. P filled the woodbox. I unloaded a bag of treats from the city. The cookstove purred and clicked. The lamps glowed.

And now, in the dark outside the open window--silence. The north woods in January. The velvet of early morning.