From My Life, 7

Breathing again after a short respite. Mornings cool and clear after early haze evaporates or blows away. Language-y texts appear on the horizon, chasing off the birds that have completed their early morning sweeps of the neighborhood. My wife . . . this one, not one of those others . . . speculates about my behavior on previous days, wondering whether or not I've totally lost it, whatever "it" might be. Windows, as always, need cleaning and to some extent dim our current view of things, whatever those things are. Color returns to our cheeks--and to the world around us. And the music, the music . . .