"We are too ill to bear the cure."

I am staying with my parents. They are up so early that no matter what time I get up, if I want to sit outside and write, there is no way to avoid letting them in before the day starts, no way to work before the world is too much with me. However, if I can push past them, if I can get outside and I can sit down, the yard, with its gardens and its wildflowers and its lilac bushes and its wood pile and its pine trees and its barn, stretches out before me.

Right now, it's the kind of light that only happens on summer mornings--yellow--and there's a coolness in the air, and the birds, who woke up hours ago, are still very busy and very loud.

Yesterday, when I woke, this was paradise and I knew it. But as the day wore on, some kind of darkness came back, and by evening, when I saw the beautiful face of my beautiful person Skyped across half the country, I could only weep, I could only wish for some word from him or from G-d that would somehow alleviate this thing inside me that is spoiling this adventure and, it seems at times, this life. And no word like that can come from anyone, except possibly G-d, and G-d, so far, is not speaking.

But again it is morning, again the sun has risen and again I am awake. Again, today, I see this paradise, I know it is paradise, I am filled with hope, with gratitude that New England is a place on this earth and that it is the place from which I come and the place to which I have returned... grateful for the beards and the flannel and the men wearing clogs Schnipper and I saw in Burlington last night; grateful for Schnipper entirely and how she reflects a world I understand, a world I am part of; grateful for the joy I find in my work; grateful for the dream I had about Hannah that was filled with love and the years and years of our friendship; grateful that I woke being able to hold space for the love of my sweetperson, the love of my family--given and chosen.

Good morning, Vermont. Good morning, Chicago. Good morning, Brooklyn.