There is cold salt in the air today, swept in under the full harvest moon. The tomatillos have escaped under the fence and ruined my neighbors garden scheme. The cosmos bloom on yellow stems. The cherry tomatoes are leafless. Fall has shown up despite.

I feel braced.

Can we get higher percentages of vaccinations, send children safely to school, lift mask mandates before winter sweeps us all indoors and back into isolation? I miss my brother in the mid-west. I miss shining my smile on you. I want to have a salsa party on the back patio and dance cheek-to-cheek with strangers. I want to breathe.

I type at the bottom of my driveway sitting in an old iron chair of my grandmother’s, watching the sparrows forage, far from the street, my face tilted to the sun. I want to be in The Cotswolds, Provence, Lerwick, Iona. Cream tea with a dear friend. Heather in the hills. Scratchy, line-dried sheets off a clothes line in Greece.

Coming, someday, but we all have to work for it.

How can I help?