My lower half is fine. The long underwear does its trick. But the top half of me hasn't fully fought off the chill of an early morning bike ride in sub-freezing air. I'm not actually complaining—I don't actually mind the challenge and the almost-too-cold fingers that revive again the minute I'm inside the warm library. I have ways of coping with the chilly arms and shoulders that lag behind.
It's been a good week. The wind-down week. The office is slipping into a half hibernation that we will maintain until the middle of next month. It empties. The stacks shrink and stay low. We upgrade and we trim and we plan ahead, a little. My breathing slows, I write long, long rows of words, speeches to myself in my free time. I try to remember where exactly I left off in the book on my windowsill that I last touched back in June. The thing about me is that I often fail to recognize patterns because I can never remember what came before. But in this case, in the case of this week and the next, I do remember. I know this is the way it always is. I know I felt just so last year at this time and will again.
I am still thinking about warm. I am feeling, aside from the outside of me, wholly so. I almost lifted out of my seat twice last night while I listened to my brother and the rest of the choir sing and once I almost did when I was playing along. I will always say yes. It fills me up. Not to mention the warmth I felt in the after, in the arms, in the ability to help, in the way the warm pink coat got me home and back and home again. I am flooded with joy when I hear news of engagements and look forward to helping, to being right there. And I can nearly choke on the affection I feel for my family, for the warm house on the hill that's becoming a home, for the odd, sacred, unplannable fellowship of four that makes me the luckiest one. They are my best quality.
I can't get this better than how it is: I am exactly where I should be.
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