Just a quick note this morning as I am heading out very early for my Bates College class. But for a moment I am paused here on the couch, listening to vague rain pattering against the dark windows. I hear Chuckie lapping up his breakfast; I hear the halting drip of the bathroom shower head and the cooling teakettle clicking on the kitchen stove. So many small sounds overlapping--a sort of aural fidget, a peaceable friction. And upstairs Tom sighing in his bed.