There's a crispness to the air outside, but fall hasn't decided yet whether to fully arrive. It hovers nearby, letting the sun seep in. The warmth is layered over the cool temperatures, syrupy and amber-colored, in a clever stratification of weather: hot on cold on warm on chilly.
I'm baking muffins (these ones, eggnog topped with a sweet streusel) and oatmeal raisin cookies with a dash of rum (why not, really?) and dense applesauce oatmeal bread.
I'm listening to music (this, to wake up, and this, to fall asleep).
I'm reading voraciously. Start here, and I'll fill in more of my own words shortly, but his are too beautiful to bookend. I feel these words so keenly, despite being so far away from any sort of despair he describes so intensely. (This is truly the feat of an exceptional writer, to make you inhabit a place you aren't even remotely near yourself.) I mean, try and read this without your heart beating harder:
Rain [Jack Gilbert]
Suddenly this defeat.
This rain.
The blues gone gray
And the browns gone gray
And yellow
A terrible amber.
In the cold streets
Your warm body.
In whatever room
Your warm body.
Among all the people
Your absence
The people who are always
Not you.
I have been easy with trees
Too long.
Too familiar with mountains.
Joy has been a habit.
Now
Suddenly
This rain.