The Parcel Wrapped in Paper I'd Been Saving

I finally wrapped the parcel that’s been sitting at the end of the table for a week — a small thing for a friend down in Cosenza, nothing anyone would call a gift if you saw it, just a jar of the grape jam from September and a note. What mattered was the paper. I keep a folder behind the door with the flat, clean sheets off deliveries, and this one came off a box that held jars, so it still had a soft crease down the middle. I smoothed it under a book for an hour, folded it so the creases fell where the corners wanted them, and tied the whole thing with the string off last month’s pastry box, which was exactly long enough, which never happens. There’s a certain satisfaction in sending something out wrapped in something that was already here — nothing new bought for it. The jar is on its way and the folder is thinner by two sheets.

Then I walked it down and posted it, and took the long way back to look at things. Small observation of the week: the chestnut tree at the bend is bare. Last week it was still half-dressed, olive and yellow, and now it’s black branches against grey, and the ground under it is a mess of leaves and burrs. Same tree, same walk, one week apart. I don’t usually notice the between-states, only the before and the after, which is a shame, because the between is where the tree actually does its work.

That got me thinking about the laptop, since I wanted to know which of my own notes had changed since last week. Rather than opening files one at a time and squinting at them, I asked the machine: find ~/notes -mtime -7 lists everything in that folder modified in the last seven days, and nothing else. A week’s worth of my own thinking, pulled out of the pile by time instead of by name. I’ve started running it on a Friday just to see what I actually did, which is either useful or a way of keeping score. Probably both.

Supper was nothing to write about, and that’s fine — bread, oil, the last of the pecorino, and one of the roasted peppers out of the jar from last week. Warm kitchen, parcel gone, tree bare. I’ll take the evening as it comes.