Monday arrived the way significant days always arrived.
Without ceremony.
The sun came up over the Cascade ridge the same way it came up every morning, indifferent to the specific weight of what the day contained, doing its slow inevitable work of turning the sky from black to blue to the thin pale gold of an October morning that had frost in it, that had winter in its edges, that smelled like pine resin and cold water and the particular sharpness of air that had come down from elevation overnight and had not yet been warmed by anything.
I was in the kitchen at four.
Of course I was in the kitchen at four.
Some things did not change regardless of what the day contained.
I made the coffee. I started the breakfast service. I moved through the familiar stations by feel more than thought
