Three days pass without a single word written. I can hardly recall the thoughts that have slipped by in three days, so what might I forget in fifty? The construction work beside my house was begun in March and looks as if it will continue another month. I have become accustomed to nothing less than constant interruption during the day times, and have not re-programmed myself well enough to write in the evenings.

When some of these gaps in my thinking come over me, I try to keep my mind actively engaged by reading. This past week or two I have been reading--besides my regular doses of Thoreau, Lao Tzu, Tolstoy, Amiel, and my own journal--Fulghum's What On Earth Have I Done, Bark's Essential Rumi, and Whyte's River Flow. My Kindle tells me I have 191 books currently loaded. If my own mind should run out of words, I have so many words from others to enjoy, even though the process of reading and that of writing seem a couple of universes apart.

I've done a little more than read these past few days. A hike along Soquel Creek just this Sunday with a friend; a long afternoon of speculation about current world conditions with the contractor working on my cottage; evening bonfires that begin near sunset and often burn late into the night; planning three separate trips to the desert, mountains, and high-country lake in early fall.

I guess today is one of those days when I think I have done nothing and that I need to get busy and do something. If I just sit for a spell and take account of myself, I see that there is still some life going on with me.

The summer warmth may have something to do with this feeling of lethargy. I step out into it to absorb as much as my skin and mind will tolerate and quickly learn that the direction of rays is less slanted right now, the beam more direct, causing me to look for shade or remove myself indoors. I don't have the same sunlight capacities, a slowly unfolding revelation about myself. Amiel calls it a melancholy harmony.