There are no leaves on these trees.

The Patient First next door to the Panera had Mandy's car in the parking lot, and when I texted her that I was creeping on her she answered how small our home town is.

It's not a town, where she and I are from, it's a county.  Due south of Baltimore. But in 2011 with chain stores and strip malls up and down Route 2, that doesn't make what she said any less true.  It's good to be home, there are few things more real and heartening to me than my family and friends.  But I am tired and don't feel too well.  Everyone here is sick, everyone.  Mandy was feeling ill and thought she might be catching what her kids and man had, I'm feeling it because of five days without my morning practice: meditation and writing.  And because there are no leaves on these trees which feels so potently voyeuristic to me, and it's so damn cold.

How quick to fall off the beam, I thought, and called Brooks to make an artist's date.  Erika told me about Zelda's paintings at a gallery at Hopkins, so hopefully that will remedy my soul.  The first week of December on the mountain in NorCal I was walking outside in the sunshine along the ridge of a hill. It was winter and I felt vital still and knew it, I was charged and alive. I remembered what Justin said to me in July, jogging by my side from the inlet rocks along the beach in Ocean City, down by the Pier.

You're elemental, Kel.  You need the elements to be well.  He's so energetic, Justin, and I remember us happy and diving in the water either on or just after our run.  He was right, and I knew it that day months later and a coast away, in the 50 degree mountain air.  My cure for seasonal affective is no more than regular contact with the air, the earth, the sunshine, the trees, the sea.  So it's not just the cold and lac of light that bothers me, it's the absence of a lifestyle.  It's an outdoor wellness regimen that I need.

That, and my regular quiet routine.

I cancelled on Mandy, we cancelled on each other.  I am going to Tim and Mary's tonight to do what I know to do this time of year back east.  It's time to hibernate.  I need sleep.