Today the sky almost too blue for its own good, and I walked and walked and walked until the wind untangled the smoke from my hair and everything was cold and bright and dizzying Morpho-wing blue.

Starred plates of melting, frost-studded ice broke off one by one, and slowly pinwheeled down the river, where soft shadows of carp nudged and nosed each other below the green surface of the water like a rumor of fins, tails, curving bodies.

Later in the day, wind tumbleweeds across the plains and builds up momentum -- the sound a breathy, compellingly unnerving, relentless billow.

In the dusk, secure in the warmth of my apartment, I fill the clawfoot tub with steaming water, Chamomile and Neroli bath salts.

Thelonious (did you know his middle name was Sphere?) plays "Crepuscule for Nellie" in the next room. Languid, diffident notes, like the slow drip of water. (Blue notes. Blue Note label.)

Everything unfurling, pinwheeling, melting in the fragrant steam, the chill of the white porcelain a delicious contrast to the almost-too-hot water. Breath of wind making the wind chimes on the balcony ring in an aleatoric counterpoint riff to the piano.

Nothing else but the now of this moment, already melting and pinwheeling away into another now that I want to make sure not to miss.

I feel so lucky to have my computer back. Now I am free to roam the internet for new, fun music and read your beautiful words. If it weren't for your writing about the great big prairie, I might forget how it feels.

Shannon! How nice to see you here again, and thank you! But yes . . . the prairie is a terrible beauty, isn't she?