I’m not very good at doing nothing. Or, more accurately, I’m very good at getting a lot done. I’m so good, I suspect that I create more work as soon as I start to run out.

Today has been a snow day. Rosie took one look at the snow and refused to budge. I cancelled my clients, and stayed at home.

I’ve got lots of things done. They’re all things that needed doing – cleaning, dealing with submissions for a handful of stones, clearing my email. I did manage half an hour walking down the white lanes, and a cup of tea with my neighbours.

However.

A phrase from the second stanza of this Raymond Carver poem appeared in my head when I was busily going from downstairs from upstairs and then downstairs again. ‘In the keep of’.

I wish I could be more like Carver on his rainy day. I wish I could have stayed in bed with the cats and piled books onto the duvet. I wish I could have fetched tea, and toast, and then later littered the bed with golden chocolate wrappers. I wish I could have put myself entirely in the keep of this glittering, snow-muffled day.

*

Rain

Woke up this morning with
a terrific urge to lie in bed all day
and read. Fought against it for a minute.

Then looked out the window at the rain
and gave over. Put myself entirely
in the keep of this rainy morning.

Would I live my life over?
Make the same unforgivable mistakes?
Yes, given half a chance. Yes.

Raymond Carver