February 13. 6:11pm. It is -8℃ outside, 3.3℃ in the greenhouse. Today’s high in the greenhouse was 14.4℃ at 12:30 pm. The low -3.5℃ at 6:09 am. I think it’s helpful to track the highs and lows now since it is getting close to ?seeding time. I can’t depend on my memory alone any more.

It is almost closing time to the day and I haven’t made any progress in clearing my trouble spots in the house. I had intentions for the last week. When I start, I don’t know where to start. Damn! I look at an area and I’m stuck, struck motionless with a sinking defeated feeling. I’m wondering how the hell I can break loose.

March 3. 10:21 am. It is -18℃ outside and -3.5℃ in the greenhouse. It seems like we are going backwards, getting colder instead of warmer. I’ve been missing in action for almost 3 weeks. How time flies even when you’re not having fun. Life doesn’t have to be perfect. Most of the time it isn’t so what am I talking about? I’m thinking of Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese this morning.

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

Her words give me comfort. I’m reminded of Sheba and her soft animal body close to mine. Everything is as it should be. The sun still rises and will set and rise again the next morning. We are all in this together. I shall feel what I feel and not fret about it. I do not have to try so hard – not to feel sad, not to feel tired, not to…. I shall let the feelings come and splash them onto my watercolour paper, however they land. They are all lessons in this art we call life.