Gasp, Sigh, Dream

1. Having been pent up in a dimly lit home office for the better part of the day, emerging through the bevelled glass doors of our apartment house to be taken completely off guard by a gorgeous slice of orangey brightness lighting up the horizon above the bottle-glass-blue of the lake below.

2. Spending a few quiet moments - between harried writing jobs and making arrangements with banks - to cantilever myself over the back of one of the reading chairs with Zelig wedged in beside me, the both of us watching the rain drops gather and fall from the bird feeder just outside the window.

3. Completely dissolving into a steamy bath and retreating to a small hillside town in Italy while devouring six or eight chapters of Nino Ricci's "Lives of the Saints".