All Saint's Day

First of November, and I can’t get the house warm all-the-way-through. I turned the thermostat to 70 for fifteen minutes, and then I felt too guilty and turned the dial back to 68, added wooly socks and a big sweater.

The cat crosses his front paws these days as he settles into his daytime nap on the back of the couch. His ears swivel at the sound of my keyboard flurries and mutterings as I type. He would like to be close, beside my left leg, but he can’t bear it when I stretch or sneeze or reach for a book in my bag, so he settles nearby but out of reach.

I ran out of yarn in my mitten project, which means I’ll need to change it to a mitt project, sigh. I ran out of yarn for the socks I was knitting, which means I’ll need to unravel the toes and replace the toes with a contrasting color—which will be brilliant, but it takes a little figuring and fiddling, and what I like about knitting is continuity, without figuring and fiddling.

The cat, the knitting, the grading projects for classes, these all make me want to go back to bed, but then I remember how precious this light is, how short the days are, how much coffee I’ve already consumed. The go-back-to-bed wish is shorthand—wish I felt at leisure, today.

The cat stretches his long neck and head over his crossed front paws in a miracle of cat-yoga. I see his hips stretching out like bellows as he breathes in, breathes out.  I love that he can sleep like this, pretty creature, sleep like a prayer, sleep like a sigh. I roll my shoulders a few times and dig into my stack of student essays, while I have the light.