Every Sunday, for the past several months, I’ve been making something in the slow cooker. And every Sunday, I consider it to be somewhat of a challenge, finding something new and also finding a way to make it more to our liking, adding more garlic or pepper or something else I think might add to the flavor. When I first started doing this, I planned ahead. Sometimes I still do. But often I go to the grocery store on Saturday with no ideas at all, so Sunday rolls around and I scramble. I look in the pantry, at what’s in the freezer, and then I consult the google to try to come up with something. What I came up with this past Sunday was Manhattan Clam Chowder.

I pulled out a can of Italian stewed tomatoes, two cans of clams. I got an onion, several fingerling potatoes, and two stalks of celery out of the veggie drawer. I pulled out the spicy hot V-8 – oh, and the slow cooker. Sliced, diced, mixed and poured. Put the lid on, and turned the setting to low. 

Then I started to wonder about something to perhaps go along with the soup. The traditional go-along is, of course, salad. But I wasn’t in the mood for salad. Another traditional go-along is bread, which we don’t usually have in the house. Then I remembered that I have a bread machine. I further remembered that I had several boxes of bread machine mix in the pantry. 

Dog love the pantry.

Here was the problem: The bread mix had been in there for a while and by a while I mean since before we moved to AZ. We moved in August of 2013. Dog knows how long it was in the pantry before we moved. In other words, old. 

But I was optimistic. I pulled out the bread machine, opened up the box, followed the directions by pouring in the water, the mix, and the yeast. Closed the top, hit start.

The bread machine hasn’t been used in years. It, too, is very old. In fact, so old I have no idea how old it is. Kevin’s sister had two from when she got married and she gave one to us after we got married. She was divorced by the time I met Kevin and he and I will have been married 20 years in September. Did I mention it’s old? 

But it worked like it was brand new. Started right up, the kneading tool churning away. The cycles passed easily from one to the next, rising, baking, and cooling. 

The kneading works for at least 20 minutes. Then it sits for a while, then it re-kneads again for another 20 minutes or so. It’s noisy. When it started up again, Riley was in the kitchen and nearly jumped out of his fur. He immediately moved toward the counter and assumed the “I’m-concerned-but-I’ve-got-this-under-control stance.” It’s the stance where his back legs are planted far apart, sunk into the tile, front paws equally wide, his body leaning forward and his head up ever so cautiously to investigate.

We laughed as we watched him, our great protector, taking on the big, bad, old bread machine that looks a little like … 

“Kind of looks like R2D2, doesn’t it?” Kevin said.

He’s back!

I am, like, a really smart person. I have a very big brain. I’ll stop short of saying that I’m a very stable genius because I’m relatively sure that, even as smart as I am, I don’t qualify as a genius. As for the stable part, it depends on the day. Most days I’d say I’m relatively stable though there are days when I near meltdown. Those pass fairly quickly. 

I am also, like, a really busy person. Like the busiest person ever in the history of persons. I work about 50 hours a week, sometimes more depending on the week. And then I have house things to take care of like cooking, and cleaning, and the dog. Kevin helps with all of that, of course. I’m lucky, but there is still stuff that needs to be done. Today, for instance, I have to go to the grocery store. Already, the dog has been walked and bathed. Breakfast for the husband-unit has been cooked and assembled. Later, I will tackle the master bathroom, a bear of a room that I always put off as long as possible because it takes so damned long. The walk-in shower itself is the size of most walk-in closets. It’s a beast. My To Dos grow by the hour. I lie in bed at night before I finally drift off to sleep and my brain begins to build the list of all that needs to be accomplished the next day. I grab my phone, open the notes app and dutifully type out the items so as not to forget.

Most days, I’m lucky to cross off one or two items while not adding any. Most days, I cross off one or two items and add five more. It leads to me to say out loud, nearly every night that “the sheer amount of things I don’t get done in a day is astonishing.” 

Sigh.

Then there’s school. Because I don’t have enough to do, with work and house and husband and dog, I also decided that now was the right time, the perfect time, couldn’t be a better time, to go back to school. Last spring I applied and was accepted into a two-year MFA writing certificate program at Stanford University. I officially started in the fall, and am now knee deep in my second semester. I love it more than I can explain. Where I didn’t care much about school when I first went to college, right after high school, I care deeply now. It brings me such joy. It feels me with a sense of purpose. It also takes another 10 to 20 hours of time each week. If I could figure out how to make a living while just schooling, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Thus far, such a career alludes me.

Again, sigh. 

The point is not to complain. My life continues to motor along. Things are good. I have a wonderful husband, a nutty dog, a great kid, a beautiful house with a gorgeous view and a well-stocked wine room. My point is to say that because there is so much going on, sometimes things fall through those ever widening cracks in my previously described “very big brain.” Like registering the Range Rover. 

The registration for the Sport is due every January 31. I got a warning email in December and another in January. The car needed to be smogged and Kevin took it in on the 25^th, where it passed without issue. The paperwork has been lying here on the counter since, right next to where I often can be found in the evening and where I am standing right now as I type this. It was to serve as a reminder to register the freakin’ truck. Here’s the problem. I didn’t put it on my list; nor was it on my calendar. I simply relied on my very big brain and my very big brain failed me.

This morning, I stood at the counter, saw the paperwork, and realized it’s February 3 and the truck hadn’t been registered yet. Which was stupid because I had the paperwork right here, ready to go. I cringed as I found the last reminder email, smooshed down in my inbox, and clicked the link taking me to the online registration page. I filled it out, and closed my eyes as I clicked “pay” because I figured I was going to get hit with a huge late fee. The price of stupid.

Turns out it was only $8.

Now if only the country can get out of our current stupidity with as small a fee. My very big brain is skeptical. But my stable genius part is sure of it. Bigly. 

We’ve been having odd weather. It’s been unseasonably warm here, as has most of the west. We’ve had very little winter and a pathetic amount of rainfall. It doesn’t get excruciatingly hot during the day, not like it does in the summertime, and the temps do drop at night. They just don’t drop that much. Last year, when we’d wake up to walk the dog, it was often around 28º. Most mornings this winter have been at least 50º. It makes it difficult to know what to wear.

In the summer, it’s easy. It’s going to be hot – that’s a given. Shorts and tee shirts are the wardrobe of choice. At night, nicer shorts and a v-neck shirt. Plus flip flops. But now, it can feel cool enough for sweatpants, but then it gets too warm and we need to change. Ditto the accompanying sweatshirt that often becomes a tee-shirt. Even at night, once the sun has tucked away and the temps have dropped a bit, we never know quite what to put on in order to remain comfortable. Kevin mostly opts for shorts. If it’s cool enough, he’ll put on a long-sleeve tee. But I’m usually not so sure. And I actually like winter clothes. I like to wear jeans and a sweater. I like to feel like we’re having a season.

Lately, after we shower at the end of the day, we’ve both been opting for shorts and long-sleeves. It’s cool ish. So then we’ll also put on slippers. We both have several pair. Kevin has some low-riders that he slips into and out of fairly easily. He also has a pair with fleece inside that come up over his ankles. I playfully refer to these as either his elf shoes or his Peter Pan shoes. I bought them, so I feel I can have fun. I have three pairs. One is also a low-rider slip-on that I just got for Christmas. I also have an Ugg-kind of slipper that comes up over my ankles and is heavily lined and thus very warm. The other ones also come up high, though they’re not quite as heavy inside. The above the ankle part is made of sweater material, and the bottom shoe part has paw prints. 

Here’s the thing, though. Sometimes those are too hot, too. Or sometimes, especially in my case, I choose the wrong slipper. I get warm; I kick them off. Kevin does the same.

Which leads us to this morning and the scene beneath the breakfast nook table.

Evidently last night – and we both have scant memory of this – as we sat at the table slurping our slow-cooker French onion soup and chomping on our Caesar salads, we both got a bit too warm, and the slippers slipped off. Evidently, also, I had done the same thing earlier in the day when I was sitting at the nook table, watching football while also attempting to do a bit of work.

This morning, there they were. Three pairs, haphazardly dropped, hiding under the stools and table. It looks like a convention, maybe a coffee klatch. A massacre of sorts. Definitely a rebellion. It was as if they were saying “we’re done. We won’t be used as pawns in your ridiculous daily wardrobe dilemma. If you want us, if you can respect us, you’ll find us here. If not, may your feet stay cold.” 

Harrumph.

The great slipper rebellion. Dateline January 15, 2018. It was a thing. You can look it up.

Charles Dickens, one of my favorite authors, begins his epic David Copperfield with those three words. The actual sentence that contains “I am born” begins like this: “To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born …” It’s the second sentence of the book, and goes on to elaborate: “(as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night.” 

To me, if someone is born at twelve o’clock, midnight, it could be attributed to the day before of the day after. 

I, too, record that I was born, but on a Saturday some years ago. I don’t recall any of the details, for obvious reasons, but I have been informed and believe it to be true that I made a fast appearance, that the small town doctor wasn’t quite ready for me, and that my father, all of 23 at the time, thought that both my mother and his new baby had died. I won’t go into the details but focus instead on the fact that I made a fast appearance and there was a small town doctor there to catch me. 

I was a big baby, 8 lbs 14 ounces. Almost unheard of in those way-back dark ages for a first baby but there I was. Fat, round, pink and bald. Funny how I seem to be returning to at least three of those things as I get older. I’ll leave it to the reader to decipher which one I’m not but it rhymes with ink. 

My life since I was born has been mostly good. There have been some bad times, some sad times, some happy times, many times filled with joy. There has been angst and turmoil, sturm und drang. I have struggled and I have persevered. I have loved and lost and loved even more. I have been up and I have been down. I have been successful and I have been a failure. My life has been filled with family who love me and who I love dearly, friends who make my life full. I have had a wonderful cat and three extraordinary dogs. One not so good husband and another who makes up for that first unfortunate choice every day. He’s my favorite husband ever. 

And I have a great kid who is healthy and happy, and working in his chosen field in Atlanta. He came home on Friday, his girlfriend in tow. They’re here through next Friday. Yesterday was my birthday and I often do my best to ignore it. Birthdays don’t seem to mean as much when you’re over 40. They seem to be just a reminder of the other side, the approach of a much different part of life, and then of the inevitable. I don’t think about it much. I still like to believe that I’m invincible.

To begin this next year at the end of this past one, I record that I am hopeful. On this night, the last of 2017, at twelve o’clock, we will celebrate. Then tomorrow, we start anew. You and me. All of us. 

The first line of David Copperfield, the line preceding the record of his birth, says: “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”

I’m in charge of my destiny. I get ample assists from those that I love and from those that love me. I don’t care if I turn out to be the hero of my own life. I just want to continue living it out loud.

Every morning, we are greeted by the face. The being who belongs to the face seems to instinctively rise from his bed, coincidentally also in our room, as soon as he hears us stir. Evidently awake people make different noises and breathing sounds than sleeping people. That’s the only explanation we have been able to come up with. As we lie there, regardless of whether we’re on our sides, on our stomachs or our backs, we will hear the telling jangle of the tags, followed by the eerie sound of a hauntingly close yawn, a yawn that seemingly comes from the depths of a now-awake and ready to face the world soul.

But first comes face time. 

It starts with the gentle thud of a snout on Kevin’s side of the bed. Dad? You awake, dad? I know you’re awake, dad, because I heard the awake noises. Kevin dutifully rolls onto his side, toward the edge of his side of the bed, facing the window. There he finds a wet black nose, upturned, the snout extended, the ears back. The being who belongs to the face is too short to reach straight across onto the mattress. As Kevin’s hand snakes out from under the covers in order to rub the face, the tail begins to wag. After a few minutes, Kevin says “go see mom.” 

Then the face visits me, doing the same thing, only sometimes on my side, he also pushes his nose under the covers as if to hide. Mom? You under here? 

This is the ritual and it’s one we have come to cherish. It is our best version of face time, and if Apple or Google could make an app for this, I suspect it would be a huge success. Alas, the FaceTime on my Apple devices is somewhat different, not quite as visceral and sensorial. We use that app fairly regularly, especially when we speak to Justin and to Kevin’s brother Jeff and his wife, Chris. I have to admit that it’s nice to be able to see people as you speak to them. This technology, once the stuff of Star Trek, is most people’s reality, and it’s a good one. 

My sister and I still just talk on the phone though that’s largely because she’s often in the car when she calls me. Hard to FaceTime while driving. My mother would probably never FaceTime though it would be nice if I could get her to do it. It’s just nice to be able to see your loved ones. It makes you feel like you actually get to spend time with them, which is lovely when those loved ones are far away. The downside to FaceTime is that a) you have to be on video which isn’t always flattering especially if you haven’t yet showered; and b) it’s difficult to do anything else while FaceTime-ing. I understand that giving people undivided attention is a good thing. I also understand that being on the phone sometimes gives me time to fold the laundry, or start a new load; to chop veggies for dinner; to dust. I rarely just sit when I’m on the phone, not when there are other things I could be doing at the same time, other things that don’t require concentration.

Our morning face time routine is ideal for several reasons. The being who belongs to the face could care less about bed hair or morning breath or dark circles. The being is just happy to be alive and even happier that we’re awake. Simplicity at its best. There’s something to be said for that – something to celebrate.

Most days, I awaken feeling that we’re royally screwed as a country. By the time, I go to bed, nothing has happened to change that feeling other than to sometimes intensify it. It’s an awful way to live but I know there are a lot of us that do. We wake up and immediately check the news feed to see what awful thing has happened while we had the audacity to try to sleep. We rage on Twitter (though not me – I don’t have a twitter account). We rant on Facebook. We exchange furious emails. More than screwed, we are feeling powerless, frightened, and desperate for something, anything that even sounds happy and good. 

Enter the Royals. That’s something I never thought I’d type or even say. I am not a Royals watcher. I don’t care much about the queen. I was not one of those people who got up in the middle of the night to watch when Diana and Charles got married. We did watch Diana’s funeral. That just seemed terribly tragic, given her age and how she died. It affected both Kevin and I much more than either of us expected. Maybe it was because she was my age and her companion was Kevin’s. 

Over the years, I would see the occasional headline about the young princes. I never read the stories. When William got married a few years ago, I saw the photos online. Everybody looked pretty. I was surprised at how much William looked like his mother, except for the hair. 

I have been mildly amused by some of Harry’s antics; some not so much. I liked his red hair. 

It was interesting then, to find myself actually following this week’s announcement of the young prince’s engagement. Yes, we have watched Suits on occasion; yes, we knew who Meghan Markle was, though I wouldn’t call us fans. But I have to admit to finding a perverse kind of pleasure in one of Diana’s sons marrying an American, and a bi-racial one from Los Angeles at that. It seems so modern. And they seem so much more interesting that William and Kate, who are attractive but utterly uninteresting with their 2.5 kids and overwhelming sense of duty. I admire that. I like that they’ve done things differently than the Royals of the past but I’ve never thought about them one way or another. 

But the engagement of Harry and Meghan makes me smile. I’ve found myself looking at photos and watching the video of their engagement. I even read a story or two. It makes me feel hopeful, somehow. Maybe it’s because I’ve always had that soft spot for Harry. He has always seemed less uptight, less formal. I love that he’s marrying a woman who’s older than he is, a divorcee, an actress. I love that they’re going to live in Nottingham Cottage, a two-bedroom house in Kensington Palace, where his mother lived. And I love that the Royals all seem genuinely happy about it all.

I’m under no delusion that if he was first in line for the throne, there would be hell to pay. But he’s not, so he’s free.

It makes me happy. Evidently I’m not the only one. Today, I was reading Andrew Sullivan’s weekly column in New York Magazine. He’s British, also married to an American, and has now become an American citizen, just as Meghan Markle will become a British citizen. After his usual tirade and Trump-disgusted prose, he wrote this about Harry: “…the looming marriage of Prince Harry to a biracial divorced American is actually important… In an unglued world, it is a form of fixative. Its complete reinvention through simple human lives actually deepens national stability and cohesion. In the era of Trump, it appears like a kind of constitutional miracle.”

Royally.

Painting by DJ Rogers

It is early this Sunday morning, three days after Thanksgiving 2017. The sky has brightened, drifting from dark to gray to a pale blue. Wispy clouds streak across in oranges, reds and purples. It’s amazing how much sunrise mirrors sunset. It’s softer though, more muted. Perhaps more promising. Maybe because it fades into sunshine as opposed to darkness. We’re leaving Templeton early. The clock on the dashboard of the Sport reads 6:32. We had set a time of departure for 6:30. We’re doing well.

As we drive across Santa Rita Road, towering oaks form a covered bridge above us. Fallen leaves have collected on either side. A deer walks through and bounds away as we approach. Yesterday Roy said he encountered a gaggle of wild turkeys, 50 or so, celebrating the fact that they made it another year without being someone’s dinner.

The house we always seem to stay in - this is our third time - isn’t far off the freeway but seems completely removed from m the world, nestled as it is among the trees. A creek is just below. A trickle of water exists now as there hasn’t been much rain. Across the creek, a hillside flows up. To the east are more trees and somewhere, the road. To the west, vineyards have been planted. In the gray light of this morning, under the canopy of oaks, the stakes and white conicals covering the new growth are barely visible, tiny ghosts in the sunrise. By summer, they’ll be spilling over with green leaves and green grape clusters. By next Thanksgiving, they’ll be covered in fall oranges, rusts and golds.

When we sit outside in the evenings, gatherings around the fire pit we can hear creatures scurrying. Somewhere there are squirrels and rabbits, raccoons and more deer. It’s far removed from any civilization which is why we love it. We know the vineyards are there, too. We dream of the wine to come.

As we drift across the narrow bridge and ease our way up to Vineyard where we’ll head east toward the freeway, the sky is already losing its color. Soon it will be, simply, blue. There are rolling banks of clouds in the distance. The weather app had said rain but I never saw any time when it was actually supposed to fall.

Another Thanksgiving weekend is ending. The journey toward Christmas begins. But first, we travel 750 miles toward home.

We’re leaving Templeton under a rising sun and a brightening sky. And thinking about how we lived it out loud.

Every night, as the sun goes down and the light of the day fades to black, the two solar inverters in our garage begin to pulse red. They do it quietly and steadily. Then, as the last of the light disappears, the red light flashes faster, briefly. On the LCD display it reads “Waiting sun.” Then they power completely down until sunrise. For some reason, this ritual occurred to me as I awaited sleep to revisit me early this morning. 

Lately I have been suffering from a relatively benign case of insomnia. I go to bed and fall asleep, but wake up somewhere between 1 and 2, and then can’t seem to get back to sleep for at least an hour, sometimes more. It happens almost nightly. I’ve tried to stop doing any work or even looking at the computer at least an hour before I go to bed. I’ve tried eating earlier than our usual too-late dinners. It works sometimes, but most nights, I have some variation on sleep-wake-stay awake-eventually sleep again. It leads to serial exhaustion. 

I know what you’re thinking. It’s the same thing I’m thinking. My work load is too much. And I’ve been traveling for meetings. And did you have to go back to school? When I saw my doctor for a checkup recently, my blood pressure was a little higher than normal. She asked, innocently, if I have a lot of stress in my life. I suppressed a laugh, and said, maybe a little more than normal. 

The thing is I’m not quite sure how to alleviate any of it. I need the work to pay the bills. I need school because I love it, and I’m committed now for two years. The work travel will subside a bit but that will be supplanted in the near term with holiday stuff. We’re going to Paso Robles again for Thanksgiving. Wouldn’t trade it for anything. We’re going to Des Moines the second weekend in December for a wedding, but we get to see Kevin’s family and Justin is coming. Then it’s full speed toward Christmas. Roy and Bobbi will be coming and we can’t wait. This year, we’re also having a New Year’s Eve party.

Plus there are gifts to buy and wrap, and in some cases, ship. There is decorating to be done. And school. Though school will be out on December 8 for about a month. But I will still have things to do during that month in order to stay caught up with my cohortmates, as the prof calls us. 

And so each night, the red lights blink in my head as I lay awake, alternating between too hot, too cold, and eventually just right. The figurative light flashes and flickers. Eventually, I can feel sleep begin to drape my body. That fuzzy, incoherent feeling that always delivers. The light flashes faster then, and just before I power down, the LCD screen behind my closed eyes displays “waiting sleep.”

Power down complete.

[Written late last night and posted today]

I am 37,000 feet above the earth. It seems an impossible number. I try to imagine 37,000 wooden rulers like the ones I had in grade school, stacked one on top of the other, end to end, an endless stick that points from the desert up into a night sky where only the pale flash of red lights gives away where we are. I wonder how 37,000 feet became the accepted height for flight. I realize I don’t care enough to find out.

I am on my way home, finally. I say finally as if it’s been weeks since I was there when it was only yesterday that I left. It just seems like weeks. I wonder if others feel this way when they leave home or if others think about it.

I wonder when Southwest Airlines started having such on-time awfulness. I wonder when flying became more awful, nothing more than a means to an endpoint. I used to like flying when I would board big planes in Los Angeles and fly all the way across the country without stopping until we landed in Boston. I suppose I liked it because my dad often gave me his first class upgrades and first class is always better than steerage. Southwest only does the latter. When I liked flying it was before 9/11, before the rest of us were made to suffer because of the government’s mistakes. The government started making flying less fun; the airlines just perpetuate it.

I wonder why it’s always nearly impossible to hear the pilot when he addresses the cabin. That’s probably not safe. I also wonder why there is always someone who farts at least once while the plane is in the air and why that person is always sitting just in front of me. 

Or maybe airplanes just stink.

I am on my way home from San Francisco.

I had forgotten how much I love it there. It’s an incredible city, sprawling and tall, dirty and glorious, filled with different types of people all melding into one. I watched people walking their little dogs last night in Union Square as I sat in a Thai restaurant eating curries and pad Thai and sipping a Cabernet Sauvignon from Washington State. I miss the sophistication of a city like San Francisco. I had forgotten. I wonder why.

It rained on my walk back to the hotel, the kind of soft rain that you almost can’t feel and so you’re surprised to find out how wet you are when you step inside. Water dripped from the fire escapes above. People strolled, dogs pooped and owners cleaned it up.

Today I sat in a board room with walls of glass overlooking AT & T Park, where the Giants play, and the glass-like bay. The sun was shining, there was only the slightest breeze. People walked and jogged, dogs ambled. Tugboats chugged toward buoys. I wondered when I would have the opportunity to visit the City by the Bay again and have more time to breathe in its scent of ocean and bread and diesel and Thai food.

The plane has started its descent. The city lights are growing closer. Soon I will be able to see the cars on the road, the still and always illuminated flags waving in the desert night.

I love how the sound of the plane changes just before you touch down. The engines have slowed to landing speed; the gear is down, the flaps up. There is a hovering sound, a closeness, a tease of a kiss.

Home.

We’re officially in fall. I know that much of the country has been in fall for several weeks now, but the desert seasons are a little different. It takes us longer. But it has finally become cooler, the days have shortened and the darkness has lengthened. The air conditioning has been turned off, and the windows are open, the daily breeze flowing through and coating everything in dust. It’s impossible to keep up with the dust in the desert, something I had been warned about previously. It’s not as bad in town but out where we live, where the winds are stronger and the land is more plentiful, the dust drifts in with the breeze and settles on our furniture, books, the floor like a long lost friend. 

Eventually even cooler temps will arrive though not for long. The numbers will drift down into the 20s and 30s at night. We might get a spit of snow. In the mornings, as we walk the dog, we will wear sweatpants, sweatshirts, and slip our hands into gloves, wrap a scarf around our throats. The temperature of the desert in winter is icy even when it’s not as cold as it feels.

This morning, we woke up to a coated sky. Gray and white, the kind of sky that would signal snow in the Northeast or Midwest. It hovers, a sky like this. There are no defined clouds, there is simply a seamless blanket covering the city, the county, the desert. 

The sky up here on the hill is different somehow. Perhaps it’s because we are so sparsely populated. It just seems bigger, and smaller. And today, grayer. When the sky is like this, we seem to sit almost at the same level, like I could reach out and feel the cool of the hovering moisture.

I love the gray. I love the way it changes the colors. The greens are muted and quiet, the houses blend more into the landscape. Even those with red-tiled roofs, Mediterranean in style, seem subdued. The black of the pavement softens and becomes more accessible. The sun tries hard to push through but it never quite makes it, and so the desert flattens and softens. It looks almost two-dimensional from up here. It’s a painted landscape that stretches 10 miles or more in every direction except north. North lies the hill. In the gray, it seems closer than ever. 

There is something about the gray that makes me start to feel the approach of the holidays. Perhaps it’s the diminishing temperatures, or the shorter days. The gray, gauzy sky is what I remember from growing up in the Northeast. A sky like this always ushered in winter and with it, Christmas. The sky doesn’t look like this in the spring or summer. There’s something about the cold that makes the sky cloudier with less clouds. When the sky was this color, we would wait and watch. A single flurry could be cause for celebration. Maybe if it actually snowed and snowed enough, school would be cancelled the next day. It had to snow a lot for that to happen.

Now, the gray just allows for cool, and the promise of cold. The weather channel says it might rain. I don’t think it will. This is the kind of sky that settles in for a long nap. It’s in no hurry to do anything or go anywhere. It hovers.

In the gray, I find solitude and wonder. In the gray, I can think less of the constant chaos, and more about the world’s potential. In the gray, I find peace. Perhaps the world needs more gray.

Shades of gray. Painting by David Pearce