rich and round and sound as a nut

Yesterday was one of those days that, while perfectly ordinary in many ways, was an absolute gift.

The weather was beautiful: low seventies, brilliant sun, a breeze from the ravine cool and tangy with brine. The birds were chatty: many different kinds, all bright in the sun, especially the just-losing-their-baby-roundness juveniles who sit on the fence and sing and clearly find everything--their own voice, a butterfly, an anxious squirrel--astonishing. I drank tea and read The Economist while soaking up vitamin D and listening to the shiver of leaves. (In spring, the new leaves whisper. Now that it's getting to be summer, the big palm-sized maple leaves hiss and shiver.) I did my morning stretching and felt smooth and strong. I had a marvellous conversation with Kelley in bed about wit and charm and confidence--how those words are such double-edged swords. I ate a perfect, absolutely perfect nectarine. I wrote a couple of scenes of Hild and thought, Damn I'm good! Kelley made us a delicious lamb stew. We watched an episode of True Blood. And I had an idea for an essay I'll write one day. It was a day rich and round and sound as a nut.

And today the sun is shining again, Hild is waiting, there's more lamb stew for lunch--and I read a lovely review of Ammonite here.

Life is good.