Empty Stories Of Bears

I wanted to write today about shades of light on traffic signs. Or considered it earlier anyway. Yet I woke up at 4:20 a.m., Jeremiah lost in the house crying, and held him falling to asleep again. He kept asking me my favorite scenes from Lord of the Rings. His voice was tired the way only kids' voices can be, but he was scared to fall back to sleep lest he wander again. "I didn't know where I was." And there was nothing existential about it, he was truly lost. The birds were riotous as usual. I had gone to sleep on the living room floor where it's cooler, after staying up until 1:30 reading Kim Stanley Robinson. And so the day fled in meetings, writing, swordplay and fatigue. And now I am here.

Moose holes empty, stories of bears. Cats that went out and never came back. And yet another pigeon - Daffodil - fallen prey to hawks. Chrisoula walked with Fionnghuala up past the cemetery and came back stunned by the quiet. While the rest of us were fencing, working over heavy lunches, business again . . .

And the twenty sentences. If I don't get to them in the morning I fear I never will. It's nearly time to get the kids ready for bed. I don't know why it matters, but I believe that once I miss a day I'll be done, regardless of how many I've done, how attractive the number is.