I was in my Zoom poetry workshop when I felt it. I have never felt an earthquake before––and the couch I was sitting on trembled for about 3-5 seconds. I only knew it was an earthquake because the facilitator of my workshop felt it simultaneously! She lives about a half hour away from me. We felt it together on Zoom! It shook me up a bit. Because it was sudden, unfamiliar, strange. I don’t live in an earthquake zone. And it shook me a bit because everything in the world feels like it’s shaking up. A feeling of being on edge and not realizing it until the earth quakes and I feel, oh! What’s happening? A very minor blip in my day, as earthquakes go, truly, a very minor blip. But I joked to my Ukrainian friend. To heck with Flouride––maybe we should be putting anti-anxiety meds in the water. Any way, I drink well water. I walked before the earthquake. Into the wetlands. Talked on the phone with Frank and my daughter, and then I swam. There was snow and ice and it was warmer. A good swim. I am sleeping hard lately and I like this. Wave woke cheerfully and I cheerfully made his breakfast, a fried egg, dry. A new thing. And made his lunch for school. And we played with his new toy: the mini Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots which is a fun game for both of us and I let him win. I have great workshops this morning and this evening, sharing different poems. A very simple and most happy time of the day is picking Wave up from school and riding in the car with him and our conversation and storytelling. Talking to a four-year-old in the land of make-believe is better than anti-anxiety meds in water. I make up two boys who are with us in the car: Mikey and Squirt. They try to trick him into getting his Rock ‘em Sock ‘em robots, but he is too smart for that. But he isn’t mad. He befriends them. He invites them to come with him to play at his aunt’s house. That’s where we’re heading. And he also hints that his grandmother might make them cookie dough to eat because she makes delicious cookie dough. He is quite happy to continue the make believe with his aunt when I drop him off. I don’t make cookie dough today. Tomorrow possibly. But I did have the chance to feed my son a good meal because he has been ill with a bug, and my daughter, who was hungry, and for Wave, who was very hungry too. And Brittany and Charlie, who are always hungry. And Brittany, who barked so much for seconds she got that too.

And I am almost done with Far From the Madding Crowd and I don’t want it to end! I NEED Thomas Hardy in my head, in my ears. So, it will be on to a revisit of the Tess of the d’Urbervilles next. Thank goodness he was prolific. 17 hours of listening to come!