February already. Did I really say I’d write here more regularly? As I think I said in January, I’ve been reading Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal before sleep, and it completely removes any shyness about starting out with a weather report. So — the temps have dropped again to around freezing overnight, which means that if I put yesterday’s pot au feu out on the kitchen balcony, in the morning the removal of the fat is made easier by its being frozen. Still a delicate operation, given that the surface of the pot is lumpy as a sea with wreckage, meaning lumps of ingredients: onion, leeks, carrots, meat, marrow bones, bouquet garni. But it lifts off fairly easily in your fingers. Today, because of the cold, the air is cold and dry and the sky is blue.

I’ve been working on some new poems, one that is only new in the sense that, after years of work, it is unfinished to my satisfaction. It’s about the hole in my tummy when I go to the university library or even just survey my own bookshelves and fact the fact that I will never be able to read (or reread) all the books. And about how my husband seems to read so much slower than I do, and yet (perhaps?) more deeply. That reminds me how much I love the French expression for ‘skimming a book’: to read diagonally (‘lire en diagonal’).

It’s going to be dark in an hour and a half, so I really should go outside for a bit—maybe check out the leaves (still invisible) on the neighbourhood trees, or go window-shopping (‘lecher les vitrines’ or lick the windows) now that the January Sales are over and our spring wardrobes are beginning to be displayed.

Off to London next week for a few days for a reading on Thursday Feb 13 at the Broadway Bookshop, in Hackney, East London, and to see my daughter and Co.

Beverley Bie Brahic