Night Noises

The rain and I drove hard all day---on the way to Gulf Breeze, Florida on the panhandle, for a week and a half of uninterrupted writing time on East Bay---a gift from a friend. She calls it the fish camp. It's a tiny one-room house all painted white, with an enwalled bathroom in one corner and an alcove for a bed on the opposite wall. Screened in porch on the bay side of the house. Perfect for my Emily Dickinson-like purposes. The long overgrown lane welcomed my arrival at dusk.

I thrilled as I unpacked the car, made the bed, and set up the table with reference books, writing supplies, and laptop, remembering the good luck I had finishing the 3rd draft of WL last year here. Now the 7th draft pulls. Unable to wait for tomorrow, I began revising the two chapters on my mind as I drove today.

I work late into the night to the nearby calls of an unfamiliar predatory bird. Does it love being out there in the night as much as I love being safe inside listening to it call? A high whistle-like call. Like Maggie's night hawk on the night she wrote her long letter.