1.
On our walk yesterday, we noticed again the piles of wood off the gravel road up the mountain, alder and firs cut to keep the Hydro easement clear. Cut last spring, I think. We noticed them every time. But yesterday we decided to fill the back of our Honda Element with wood. Luckily the back seats had already been removed. We didn’t have a saw so we only took the lengths we could lift and toss to the road. Already they were knitted to the earth with long strands of trailing bramble.
2.
What colours would you like, I asked my granddaughter, who is ten, and for whom I am making a quilt. Her second–the first was made long ago, when she was two, a bright French patchwork with big buttons for her small hands. In response, she sent a bar graph: various shades of pink, with a small amount of purple. (I am someone whose idea of the perfect quilt is home-dyed indigo…) In response, she said, Please don’t do a crazy design. (I am someone who…) I thought long about how to use the pinks, a bit of mauve, a flowery print someone passed along to me years ago. And of course the solution was in front of me, carefully drawn on a card she sent in the mail: a bar graph. I am sewing strips of two shades of plain pink, two bright pink prints, one marbled, one scribbled, the mauve, and the flowery print.
3.
A weekend of baking with my new sourdough starter: chocolate cake made with the discard, glazed with caramel; and a big loaf studded with walnuts to have with Portuguese kale and potato soup. Tonight, maybe pizza with more discard. I have named my starter Artemis.
4.
On these cold mornings, after a swim, the fire is the place to settle and think. I think about the strips of pink cotton, the remaining cabbages in the garden, grown from seed bought in Portugal, the beauty of the Anna’s hummingbirds who dart in to feed and then hover on the bare wisteria. I don’t think about what’s happening south of the border. I won’t. Next year the big slabs of fir bark I gathered yesterday to add to the logs will burn hot and fierce.
...Theresa Kishkan 
I’m not thinking about it either, Theresa. The family of David Lynch have suggested that people meditate separately-together for ten minutes at noon Pacific, and I’ll be joining. Love that you named your sourdough starter!
(There’s something of the goddess about this batch of starter…) Let’s hope that goodness somehow triumphs in the days ahead but the year is definitely off to a shaky start.
I said I looked forward to going to the dentist rather than watching the inauguration.
Excellent priorities!