The only jewelry I want today is the beaded fern. The mallards paddle the brook. They are nesting in droves with the geese and the beaver has built a home in the wetlands where they all gather. Snow will come, it will come all day, but not yet. I woke late becauseI woke for hours in the middle of the night. I tried to work on a poem. My mind won’t focus there. But I opened a draft of a novel one of my poetry pals has written for us to discuss Tuesday night, and this is a test: will it hold my restless interest in the lonely sleepless hours? I will give him the good news. It draws me in and keeps me engaged. But, here I am, before the snow, with my youngest daughter and our dogs, tromping along the trail bundled in jackets and gloves and hats. There is so much to discuss. Not easy for me to talk, as my emotions are clanking and growling beneath the surface. I suggest, as we walk on the trail through the trees, that we do something we’ve done together for years, though not in a long time. Let’s do a playback for each other I say. She knows what I mean. I will tell something on my mind, and then she will play it back for me, improvising and elevating and using her body and mind and soul and emotion make an artistic and empathic offer of what she hears me saying. I tell the story of wanting to be like a tree, like a very strong tree, like a beech with golden leaves longlasting and illuminating in the woods. She plays that back for me, and I know, yes, this is working. I feel better. So much better. Then it is her turn: We are now by the swampy wetlands under the clouds. She tells a story of her grieving her grandmother and how frustrating to not be able to have the usual processes of closure. I play that back for her, and she feels helped. And I feel helped. Telling and playing back: both roles are healing. We walk on into the morning of this strange and stranger day of our new normal. I manage to write and send my weekly Aim for Astonishing writing prompt, this one about grandmothers, real and ideal, and seeking and providing comfort. Another highlight of my day: I bake a gingerbread cake. My mother, every special once in awhile, would bake a gingerbread cake for dessert and plop a whop of fresh whipped cream on top of the warm cake. There is no whipped cream tonight, but there is memory of my mother and warm cake to enjoy. Tonight, my Monday night poetry, and oh~I was so happy to be with everyone on Zoom and sharing poems and feedback. I could not write anything new yesterday or today. My mind won’t focus like that right now. I had two of the palimpsests of found poems from my mother’s love letters that I had not yet brought; and this was just the right thing. They were well received. Very encouraging. I trust I can go forward with these, and I believe they are just the right thing for me to try and advance right now. I do highly recommend this medicine: a hunk of warm gingerbread, eaten with your fingers, just before bed.