Friday was the most beautiful day to sit inside and stitch with my friends.  (I made something with paper and glue, but that’s beside the point.)  I haven’t been able to join their regular get together in a long time.  Afterwards it felt like some inner balance was restored that I hadn’t realized was off kilter.  There is no substitute for the companionship of making things together.

The sharp curves and steep climbs have not abated.  The friend who has to take overnight shifts to stay afloat; the one with the house that won’t sell and won’t rent; the open heart surgery for the healthiest, skinniest runner I know.  Each event unthinkable, until it became the inevitable next thing.

So I drive out Saturday morning to reckon with other inevitables.  Harvested strips define the fields, making clear for the first time how vast were the oceans of soy and corn that now surrender the work of their season. The sky – a ready symbol for powers we cannot hope to change or even influence – is as immense over the Moraine as any vista in the Great Plains, and measured with its own rows of low, receding clouds.

And the cold night has pulled innumerable crystals of water from the surrounding air – that cling now to every green and tender leaf, and every spent and lifeless one as well.  Every week, these same wonders on this same road – which is never the same.

Oh, my friends.  There is nothing to do but keep going.