It is winter proper, the cold weather, such as it is, has come to stay....At night I read and write, and things I have never understood become clear....-- Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

I heard on the radio this morning that this would be the warmest day we'd have this week. It was 22 degrees at the time, just before 7:30, and I was taking two girls from the neighborhood to school. Lynn had already left at 6:30 with McKenna, headed to McKenna's church for an early morning youth bible study.

Lynn had not decided until last evening to attend this morning's session (why yes, I do believe there might be an attractive boy from another school involved!). I didn't want her calling the other girls on such short notice to let them know they'd have to face Monday taking the bus. The bus comes at 6:55. From December until nearly March it is still night time then. If you can drive or get a ride, you don't have to leave until 7:25. They've had enough to deal with this past week. They don't need to be standing in the cold dark of night waiting for a bus.

I would have taken all three of them to school anyway, because Lynn's car spent most of yesterday and this morning up at the entrance to our neighborhood, where it had stalled out and refused to start again. When Ron went to look at it he could see that fluid (which kind he didn't know) had leaked out in copious amounts and was trickling down the hill. We had it towed to the dealer, who diagnosed the problem as a broken water pump, timing belt, and some other part whose identity has now slipped my mind. They had it fixed by 4:30, so Lynn has her own wheels again.

After I dropped the girls off I went to the Giant, the neighborhood supermarket. I'm usually not there so early, but as part of my new, more efficient "time management from the inside out" plan (or maybe it's "inside out time management" in my case), I want to get these tasks out the way early to allow an uninterrupted block for reading and writing. The goal: visit the Giant no more than twice a week, and never on Sunday. I had my list of supplies for three nutritious evening meals written out according to the store's floor plan, I didn't see anyone I knew, and I was out of there and home by 8:30.

I've often tried to picture myself in the life Annie Dillard led at Tinker Creek, alone in a cabin with no responsibilities beyond the cultivation of my own mind. I am by nature an introvert who needs long periods of silence to work productively. But I also crave companionship, especially that of my family. Over the summer it seemed as if I were sharing a house with two roommates. Lynn worked, slept, and went out with her friends. Ron took full advantage of the late afternoon and early evening hours when conditions were best for flying his model airplanes, and then I went away for three weeks, so I don't think we had dinner as a family more than half a dozen times the whole season.

It is winter proper now. Although it was cold all day, the kitchen stayed warm from the sun streaming through bare branches. I sat at the table for a long while, wrote a good deal, and read. I got the fiction crate out from behind the tv cart and at least moved it into view, but I shrank from actually taking anything out of it. My reluctance to move into the kind of writing I seem to desire so much to do remains something that has not yet become clear.