The Wintry Seas of Summer

16 June 09

Low, dismal clouds this morning. Going on weeks now of the old SF summer doldrums. The length of the coast trundled over with clouds by a sustained trough; t-storms radiating across the west and northwest. A few afternoons of the sky breaking pink and pale gold and towering as a Kauai’an sunset. I think of Kauai of course, being where Ada was conceived. Three years of the fertility computer working like a charm, then just because we're on our honeymoon and the world is as gorgeous and perfect as can be the thing decides to take a week off. The other theory being that no hurdle was going to hold back the little charging spirit, not with such a grand entry before her, those sunsets spilling over Hanalei Bay and gilding the hotel room and sparkling our whiskey-ginger drinks and gold-dusting Anna's dark eyes.

Ada and Anna in the bedroom now, cooing and talking. Fixed them scrambled eggs and toast and tea before prying myself over here to sit and peck away about the weather. The view from my writing room like that of the cabin of a boat, looking west at the dark-clumped trees and rooftops of the far ridge awash in the morning grey. A winter feeling of hunkering in, especially now with Ada. It's a kind of floating world we're living in, up here on Bernal Hill, drifting above the sea and the city and whatever it was we called our lives below.

But in another week I'll be back swinging a hammer, and it'll hurt pretty bad to think back on this. Somehow I thought that during these two weeks I'd get some research done on the novel. A ridiculous expectation and I've dumped it out the window with all the others except the one about loafing around the house with family. But really, I'm pathetic when it comes to any kind of research. If a door needs hanging I'll jump to it and have it done by the hour. But ask me to dig up an agent on line and I'll tangle myself in the web faster than a fly could do and with more struggle. I'm just no good at it. I might as well go at the keyboards with hammer and cat's paw, for all the good it does.

Tomorrow is Anna's 33rd birthday. Bought her a summer dress from Nisa and today will truck over to Flora Grub to buy a lemon tree for her. Sunshine for my sunshine; sunshine dreamed of or drooping from a leafy branch, in spite of the leaden skies.