First Rains.

As if on cue, the warm weather broke the new day, and we spent it indoors reading and napping, listening to the rain and wind outside. I am very conscious now of a new level of relaxation of which I am now capable (or of which I had become incapable in recent times), namely, to be able to close my eyes but not to sleep, and to think of nothing in particular, planning nothing, rehearsing nothing, contemplating nothing. I hope that it is a place I can revisit in our new life in the country.
I might theorize that it is the lack of television-watching - now largely displaced by reading - that allows this state of mind. Our small TV here at the house receives only a handful of Italian broadcast channels, and is not nearly as seductive as our cable television set-up at home. For starters, of course, it is only Italian-language, and watching requires some high-level mental engagement for us, something like attending a college lecture, or at least that of solving a crossword puzzle. There are news broadcasts, of course, which we monitor for major world events. And most every morning there are dubbed episodes of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (called here La Signora del West) which are relatively easy to follow, since both plot and dialogue are very predictable; still, one cannot escape learning a thing or two (about Italian usage).