Fore and Aft
This year has seemed a little back-to-front. Suddenly we had some summer--just when the calendar started hinting at autumn, and I'd resigned myself to doing the indoor things that needed doing. Like that writing thing. Still, we're happy to have had the chance to finish some important-but-unglamorous projects that required manual labor. Adjusting to the weather always always always tests my (metaphoric) flexibility. If I have a morning blocked out to get through the revisions on a story, and the day dawns rain-free and temperate, going outdoors requires actual physical wrenching. I force myself upstairs to put on the mud-covered jeans and denim work shirt; I force myself outdoors: "Just bring back one load of stuff from the little place, and then you can quit," I tell myself. (Then I test my physical flexibility, which is also not naturally great.) Sometimes that one load really is all I do. Sometimes I do more. But I do something. And 99 times out of 100, I enj