This morning I woke up wishing the heat was on in our building. I broke out the space heater last night and had a blanket draped over my legs as I worked on my laptop. Outside, the leaves stubbornly remain green here in Chicago. Inside, my painter has made great progress in the kitchen; the cracks in the plaster have been filled but there’s still a fair bit of pink to be seen and the window seems to be sealed shut. With caulk. I’m at 33K words with this novel and thought I’d wrap up tomorrow at 35K but clearly that’s not going to happen when I’ve still got three chapters to finish. This fall the universe is definitely trying to teach me patience…and I really am trying to sit with the discomfort caused by my inability to make things happen on MY schedule. I want flame-colored leaves and clanging radiators and complete chapters that seamlessly flow into one another. But that’s not what I’ve got. This week the painter returns with an assistant so by Friday, the apartment should look very different. But if it doesn’t, I’ll have to just live this way for a little while longer. I ordered some furniture for the dining room but right now there’s nowhere to put it because that room holds everything emptied out of the kitchen, and everything I need to take to the basement storage locker, and all the boxes I’m afraid to throw out in case my new ceiling fans or light fixtures suddenly stop working. “A place for everything, and everything in its place.” According to my father’s unfinished memoir, he learned that proverb from his paternal grandmother. Well, Bertha would be mortified if she saw my apartment right now. I’m mortified but try to remind myself that it’s temporary. And not being done doesn’t mean progress isn’t being made. Writing a thousand words a day is still an accomplishment and the world won’t end because I missed my deadline by three or four days. Two weeks from now, the view from my window will look differently. I will be done with this novel and fussing over some new story. Then the leaves will fall, the trees will be bare, and winter will be here…