True Thaw.

I think if you're burning a fire to take the chill off your building, then you can't say it's warm, but I've been outside, people—I have walked the Toad to his morning whistle and I have back-and-forthed to the woodpile from the double doors and it is something. More accurately, it is something else. We come out of a long low winter in much the same way we hit late September out of August and whatever else comes before, which is to say, suddenly, and by fits and starts. Which is also to say that I know it will be cold again, know we have the various heartbreaks of March still fully in front of us (sleet, a week of cold, snap freezes to take the blooms off things, general slowness in the change of season)—I know even that it'll be chilly on Wednesday of this week—but I have been outside.

I will miss, viscerally, lighting that fire back there each morning. The aforementioned double doors, purchased specifically so they could be open and screened, had better be as good come actually warm mornings.

I've been remembering the way it felt the last time I finished a draft—my head buzzing at the corners, everything up and off the desk seeming a little sharper, a feeling like I'm just outside the world. Today could be a good day, and if not today, one of these days here shortly. Self-imposed deadline coming up, and I look good to make it. Goddamn I'm ready.