bathing suit, organize

there was windstorm this morning. parts of the city lost power. telephones, computers, elevators, traffic lights - dead.

pacific northwest weather is in constant flux. the sky was a luminous pink at dawn, a light gray by nine o'clock a.m., a bleak charcoal by mid-afternoon. wind, gentle rain, piercing sunlight for a half an hour or so.

at around eleven o'clock a.m., one of the little boys i am a nanny for told me that the sounds outside were not caused by the wind, but by a mouse named bathing suit and a rat named organize. 

by nightfall i am tired, i fantasize about scalding my cold skin in a hot shower, bundling, finding a way to prop up my book without taking my hands out from under the blankets. i am dictated by the temperature and the sky, and no amount of space-heating or artificial light will convince my body otherwise. the whole day is a process of locating my energy, stirring it up, expending it, and allowing it to gradually dissipate until it is once again time for sleep.

i dream of a tree with a door carved into it. i dream of objects in the shape of a uterus. i dream of the angry ocean.