20 days, 20 fires. Two more to go, although the weather will complicate my plans to have the final fire under a particular iced-over waterfall I love. I'll have to come back and do that after the holiday. I should have that entire week between Christmas and New Year off, and nothing quite to do with it. That makes me a little sad, although I'm sure I'll waste up the time pretty good and maybe even get into the woods. The weather will be shockingly cold. I'm worried about the house (aw, I'm worried about the house, she whined again and again - but in this way, I mean the pipes freezing, the cats being cold, etc.). I'm worried about the house in the traditional way too; the email is off to the landlords with the list of demands. Whenever I ask for something like that, I have a vague feeling that I'm going to be screamed down.  

Mmm. It's amazing how good a dream can be sometimes. I woke up from one of those old fashioned ones last night and now all the feelings of it are with me during the day like a little light. I have so much to do today, particularly shifting my travel plans forward, and all I want to do is sit around and think. 

I'll leave this post with one mediation that I have been pushing around my brain over the weekend and into this week, swirling around the last dregs of the year. It's amazing the way that the nature of existence is the relentlessness of life and the way it attracts more life to itself. I could be corny: looking at my friends this weekend, surrounded by beautiful children that weren't there a few years ago. The empty spaces get filled in so rapidly. You get older and life picks up more and more life, like one of those big rolly ball things in that weird Japanese video game. (This is meant to make you laugh, I know it's dumb comparison, but that is how I see it in my mind's eye.) But even my stupid extra cat that attached herself to my household. You're feeding crows one day, and next you're feeding crows, blue jays, wrens, and a big titty squirrel with no tail that will eat out of your hand. I cut back my boxwood and everything living rushes up toward the light.