Settling in and down

Friday evening, though I have lost a day, somehow. Tomorrow should be Friday. Today has a Thursday feel, always a touch doomed, but with time implied to catch up on what procrastination creates, that vague undercurrent of panic. Yet the terrace has been cleaned, the roses pruned - and two perhaps destined for the chopping block. The gravel has been vacuumed. Yes, vacuumed. It is the only way. All those blasted little leaves.

And now I have come home with lemons. Arborio rice. Good parmesan. Also carrots. I like to reduce them to minute squares of sweetness in the lemony risotto that I have loved making ever since eating it for the first time all those years ago at Al di la, when Brooklyn was new and I, adrift. When I was new and Brooklyn adrift. When Al di la was new and we all drifted.

I haven't touched a drop, I swear (though that is about to change).

Vince and I walked out together in the late afternoon, me in jeans and boots, he in body-clinging running gear which made me look at him with renewed and rather lascivious appreciation. I shopped for Martha magazines, to send to mothers north and south, and then slotted back into my old course, up Atlantic, into Sahadi's, into Mr Lee's, into Heights Chateau where the owner, Matthew, saw me and said, Welcome Home.

I like that. We should say it to each other more often. It makes you settle down and touch bottom and realize that there is plenty of air left in your lungs, after all. That you can sit there for a bit feeling lightly buoyant, before letting go and rising up to greet whatever might be out there.