Reading translations in the tub after everyone else is asleep. I'm not sure where I fit into it all, the elbows and the wool. But the peace of it.

I have been ignoring my mother lately. That is not true. What I should say is that sometimes when I wake at night I let myself think of something else and I am happy.

The thing about letting everything go to seed is that the birds love it. They hop about the yard, past the mustard and the thistle. The whole things is a place to hide.

I can't stop thinking of those children watching their mother die. Waiting as her body slowly gives up. Remembering my father as his body stopped working. Watching the pieces go.

Sitting at N.'s counter, her feeding me cookies and pouring me tea. Talking about our lives, our families. Her children doing well, playing music, applying for school. Mine still in my belly.

Potatoes were on sale yesterday at the market. Buy one bag get two free. Spinach too, buy one and get one free. We'll be having spinach-oatmeal soup soon, and shepherd's pie. Potatoes roasted with salt and pepper and rosemary from the garden if I can find any.

I wonder if her family came, if they figured it out.

Yesterday's spider came back, crawling up the kitchen cabinet this morning. Up and down with his seven legs. Abigail didn't want him there. Wanted to use a napkin to shoosh him away. Instead I caught him in a cup and left him outside.

N.'s copy of Bartok for Children is still on my piano. The spine taped where I said I would fix it.

I will bake something to leave there at their door. I can't expect them to get it. I can't expect it will matter.

There is love we put into things. We can never get it back.

It had beena good day. The kind of day that makes you wonder why sometimes it is so hard. The kind of day that makes you think you are good. And then it happened. Nothing major, a run-in with the recycling man, about what numbers mean, number two and number six.

I have been wrong. For months I have been putting plastic bags and styrofoam in my bin. I believed the numbers. I should have known better.

My horoscope warned me about this, about being comfortable. On the way to the park I couldn't get coffee. I couldn't get a styrofoam cup I couldn't recycle.

What else am I doing that is wrong?

Cleaning the living room this evevning I came out from under my desk to find myself staring at the spider with seven legs. I must have severed his line from the ceiling. I didn't want him there but days ago I had decided that he, with his seven legs, had the right to live on my ceiling. I didn't know what to do.

I got up to put a bowl in the sink. A sock in the hamper.

When I came back he was gone.

It's funny, tonight, how much I want to talk to someone. I wish I could talk on the phone. I wish I had something to say.

I meant to tell you about my long day last week. The phone call inthe morning asking me to call if my mother died. Crying in the tunnel over everything lost. Bringing the kids to Boston Medical to see Other Grammie with her broken neck. Parking on the top floor just to see the sky. Red Jello spilled all over the car. Lunch at Real Taco with a funeral on TV. An hour and a half of traffic on the way home. Counting at the supermarket. Rissoto with mushrooms and carmelized onions and spinach. Salmon with mustard dill sauce. Driving the kids to sleep.

It struck me that day, watching the people come and go. People in uniforms, people in hospital beds, people in cars, how odd it is that we love the people we love. That frail man in the next bed. The driver of the truck that cut me off. The older woman talking to me in line. How funny it is that with a different twist of fate they could be the people I love.

I am still amazed that it worked. I had sorrows. And I drank. And they went away.

For the first time inmy life I drank my sorrows away.

I am still shocked at the effect. Falling asleep without thinking at all. Sleeping deeply without a care.

It was a delicious few hours. But the next day was no better.

Driven home tonight in a '67 Dodge Dart convertible. The one Joe slowed so suddenly to look at. With Iggy Pop and the Stooges playing.

It was alright.