Wander alone, the days have felt like one big smear of indigo across a sheet of silk. Neither unpleasant but also undefined. Days turn into nights turn into days again before I’m ready to see them end, is it twilight or dawn? He’s back to school and almost finished with this first quarter, every horizontal surface in the house covered with books and journals and reading materials and photocopies and legal pads. His eyes are too tired to see.

Saturday morning was sunny; after teaching my dance class I sold China silk for veils, rolling the shimmering white fabric out on the long studio floor, measuring and cutting and folding. There is something in the thing itself, a genuine delight to touch, the liquid motion inherent to the fibers. Three yards each, I measured and then ripped the cloth quickly, the violence temporary before the separate pieces regained composure. Three yards for a lovely long sheer drape.

How many boiled cocoons of silk worms, how many long threads spun down and teased out and woven tightly strand by filament strand? Ready to dye, what colors will they become?

In the dark wet evening I picked chard from the garden, tender waxy green leaves with vermillion stems and veins. A very well-rested JJ herself came and knit while we sat and chatted, always a pleasure, she's lovely. And S didn’t burn the chard I picked, but almost. He cooked a sweet potato soufflé and barbequed chicken breasts and we drank too much wine.

After dinner and after JJ left for home, S & I had more wine and were silly and drunk and painted little green leaves on the molding that runs across the kitchen’s built-in shelf. It was fun and worth much laughter and the next morning it was worth even more laughter. Not quite so bad as you could imagine but certainly not as good as we thought we had done through the fog and unsteady headiness of red wine.

Sunday morning was easy and then I gave him time alone for schoolwork & went to my girl Shelly’s home. She was excited about a fancy box of tea. Each bundle looks like a cluster of tea leaves but when steeped in hot water, unfurls to display the most tricksy of flower-drying arts. How do they do it? One lump of grey-green opened up to show a large orange flower in the center. We knelt on her kitchen floor and watched as the flower bloomed inside the pot of hot water. It seemed like time-lapse photography. The tea was very tasty and good, too.

Then we worked. The level of communication, the anticipation and connection we’ve achieved through dancing together for years is indescribable. We love working together to fill the spaces within the music with motion. Yesterday we worked long on a choreography, the movement just came effortlessly, we elaborated combinations and decided on timing, we figured out stepwork and spins and drops. The rhythm moved steady, and so did we, with sweating smiling faces.

I returned home to a studious husband, who worked late into the night, and who got up an hour before me this morning.

When I got up he said the coals in the woodstove were still burning, so it was very easy to get the fire going. And I said well good.