Sunday

Today may be one of the last quiet days until after the new year. There are holidays, weddings, conferences, papers, talks, planning, and trips to come. But today there is quiet, crepes, orange pekoe, reading about readers, yoga, knitting, perhaps some meditation. I'm trying to keep my brain at peace, to store up a bunch of calm for the days and weeks ahead. You can store most things in a crepe, so why not tranquility?

Shh

It's a very quiet morning around these parts. Since working a "real" job over the last year and a half, I've come to relish silent Saturdays in my little urban nest. I have a whole pot of tea steeping, three projects on the needles, two new promising books about panic, a tiny bit of reassuring news about next year, a stack of books to skim for next semester's class, a craving for more lentils, and all day to flitter between them.

this and that

Spring finally arrived in Philadelphia. I sat in Fitler Square for two hours yesterday morning "grading papers." I wasn't really grading papers. I was feeling spring. I was remembering just what it feels like when the sun soaks into my closed eyes, when I can feel that perfect warmth. I had great plans to take care of a thousand things this weekend, but the sun had another agenda for me. I had to be in its presence. I had to sit with my eyes closed and just breathe. So instead of grading 17 papers, I graded 7.

But I did manage to tackle a few stubborn items: taxes, census (I love the census, its numbers and its collecting seem to suspend us in time), hemming a Liberty of London for Target shift dress (perfect for work if not in the dreamy tana lawn),

making whole wheat spinach and mushroom calzones (another bit Moosewood perfection),


helping a friend get her backyard garden set up (reminding me that I think I really would be happy with a bit more manual labor in my life), running a half a dozen miles. Though I should have been running outside along the river in the sun, I'll admit that I was pounding the treadmill so that I could do a little of this:

So now it's Sunday night and I have a stack of papers left to grade, a book to prepare for class tomorrow, and a critical essay to work through. I probably should have done all of these things yesterday, but that just wouldn't be my style. Besides, the rain and the cold will surely return tomorrow and then I'll have no choice but to hibernate once again.