Thursday, January 26, 4:30 PM. Brewer.

It was really cold this morning, 24° on the thermometer. The Almanac says it won’t snow, and it doesn’t look like it will. The sky is clear and blue and the moon is like a sliver of frost, like one happy eye smiling down on us.

I like it like this. Tonight we’ll build up the fire in the living room. We’ll get on our warm jammies and our slippers and make some hot cocoa. We’ll sit close together on the sofa or stuff two or three of us in the recliner. We’ll read aloud to each other while Claire knits and Trevor plays with Legos. Or we’ll tell jokes or play charades or the alphabet game. Then after a while we’ll get quiet, still together but in our own worlds, our own toys, our own books. It’s the best hour of my day, the best times of my life.

I feel stronger, steadier, clearer. I did quite a bit of work today. I spent the morning doing repairs on the barn and the house. Some of the wood was rotting and needed replacing and repainting. Then the kids and I spent an hour or so changing the oil in some of the cars. I hadn’t done that since I was a teenager. After that we cleaned up and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing.

I wish every day were like this. I could use another thirty or forty years of these evenings. Why can’t I just keep feeling stronger week by week, and then around the first of March wake up one morning to discover I’m back to feeling perfectly fine? Why not?