The world is clamoring for our attention in an even more persistent chorus than usual. In this era of Covid-19, we’re told to cancel nonessential gatherings, shelter in place, and wash our hands. We worry about family members and friends–especially our elders and those who are working in health care or trying to figure out how to manage the kids when their schools are closed or . . . .

The circle of the year has turned again, and we’ve entered another holiday season. Bill and I (and Molly too, of course) always enjoy spending a few early-winter weeks at our cabin in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of north-central New Mexico, where I can get my “snow fix” for the year. When the Ponderosa pines are covered with snow, they are picture-postcard pretty.

This is the first of a new series of eletters about life as a writer, at home in the Texas Hill Country. I’m planning to send quarterly updates, with the seasons.

For us, the coolest thing in this super-hot summer: a visit with son Michael and family from Juneau, Alaska. They stopped in to see us on an adventurous west-to-east camping trip that took them east to the Big Apple and beyond, then west again and home on the Al-Can Highway. They even managed to time their travel to avoid the Great Alaska Ferry Strike. It’s always wonderful to see the grandkids, who have computer skills and interests that would have been incomprehensible to me when I was their ages. Their generation–its promise, its potentials–is incredible.