They say writing about thing helps you feel better. It is so gray today; two nights ago it snowed, and yesterday morning we woke up to a glittering day-- white everywhere, it was so clean, so beautiful. I brought the kids outside while I shovelled. Instead of mittens, I put socks on their hands. But today it is horrible outside-- cold, cold and gray. Everything that began to melt yesterday, in the sun, is frozen over today. I don’t know if anyone came to shovel the sidewalk of the elderly man who lived across the street. An ambulance carried him away one night (there was a fire truck there, too, and I’ve always wondered which ladder it was, if they lost any men) and he never returned. Perhaps he died, but several days after the incident one of my other neighbors told me he was in the hospital, that he’d had a heart attack.

Wild Girl is lying in her basket, awake and calm. When she’s like this, ironically, she’ll get fussy if I pick her up. I think it reminds her that she’s not nursing or being cuddled. “Oh wait-- I was calm, but I wasn’t being hugged? I better start crying!” She so beautiful and sweet. Yesterday all I wanted to do was lie upstairs in bed and stare at her. Their strengths are so varied, they’re like snowflakes or different breeds of butterflies.

The house is a mess. I’m still giving myself a grace period... what is it, forty days that they say it takes to regain your strength? I’ll give myself, then, until Valentine’s Day.