I spot a wren creeping in the undergrowth of a fuschia bush. It's been awhile since I looked, really looked, at trees and birds and everything that undergirds our busy lives, ignored until it feels too late. In the rare sunshine, the trees are flames, calling us to note the signs of incipient winter.

//

The other night I went out for drinks with Maureen and her friend from Donegal, among familiar faces in a bar that was not my husband's. Later I noticed the bar owner whip out his phone and aim it in our direction. The phone clicked, and then he laughed when he looked at my bemused expression it had captured. This town is a fishbowl, you can't have a drink without it being noted.

//

"If there was one thing about Lola's stories, it was not only that they had no moral, they were also completely devoid of ambition... Or at least any other ambition than to make as much of the moment as possible." The same can be said of Eve Babitz's hugely enjoyable, cheerfully decadent novel L.A. Woman. The main character is driven by a desire for freedom, and it shapes each reinvention of her self. Sophie doesn't want to become a starlet, she just wants to know if she can be one. Lacking ambition, she has a lightness of being, or luck, which comes across as deeply poetic.

//

With each new responsibility, I can feel the frayed edges of myself being reknitted into something new, scarred where the edges don't mesh well.

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