… that you’ll be surprised to learn that I’ve recently spiced up my repertoire of evening fun. You wouldn’t have though it, I know, but it’s true.

Last night, as the sky got dark a full two hours earlier than I thought it should, semi-darkness suddenly seemed more restful than any other state. And having just survived the busiest three work weeks I’ve had in months, restfulness had become my ultimate goal. If I couldn’t find that grail, I was in imminent danger of losing my sanity.

So I moved a table lamp to my kitchen table (which looks out of my patio doors onto my porch and out over a thick stand of fir trees), made myself a pot of tea, wrapped myself up in blankets (it suddenly got REALLY cold here), and read for a couple of hours. I haven’t felt so refreshed in weeks.

I don’t know where that idea came from. I could just see myself sitting there and enjoying it. All I had to do was recreate my mental picture of tranquility. And it worked so well that tonight, after my dinner guests left, after the dishes were done and the leftovers were put away, and before watching the most recent episode of House, I set up the lamp and the tea and the blanket once again. Something about the warm pool of light falling only around me and nowhere else, the silence of the rest of the house, and the fading light causing the fir trees to shift from deep green to black against the cloudy sky did more to calm me than a warm bath ever could.

I’m even thinking of buying a little lamp specifically for this purpose.

Yes, I know. My life is incredibly interesting.