.

Thad is still gone and it is raining and I feel a bit lonely. Today is a day for curling up with a fat book, a warm blanket, tea, and a placid cuddler. I am making do with Fabian, who is adept at the placid cuddle, but he's a bit small and I can't get the fire to burn properly. Hence the loneliness. Perhaps if I broke out the chocolate. So much for enjoying my hermitude. 

I suppose there is discrepancy in this whole situation, or at least there appears to be. We have come out here for our indefinite period to live in seclusion and sort out the good from the clutter life was imposing on us. And I complain that I am too alone, now, when I haven't seen family or a movie or a mall for months and months without, until this moment,  feeling the slightest crumb of deprivation. (Maybe there have been crumbs occasionally. But very few.) But it makes sense, doesn't it? One is so much more than nothing than any other quantity can be to one. I don't need society when I have the society of one companionable soul. I know I am indulging self pity. That is what rainy days are for. If only I could say it more clearly.

As to secluding ourselves and leaving it all to find whatever it is we left it all to find: there isn't much news on this front. It's been how many months? But we didn't leave blindly, idealistically, the way I imagine people dream when they say they want to get away from It All. We knew that It was as much inside us as out, and we'd be taking whatever is inside along with us in our one giant, decrepit green car. And it was much less of running away and much more chasing after. We haven't caught up yet, but I feel like we are closer and don't get winded so quickly as we used to. This is all terribly vague, isn't it? The clouds have entered my brain. But here is proof. We can sit still now. That is the great one. There are others, but the kettle is whistling, so you'll just have to wait.