There is something in the muffled quality of the air, something in the way that the sunlight shortens the shadows and peers low and uncertain through the shades, something about the way the door rattles with wind or the way the glass creaks in the morning cold, something in a million other unspoken and barely conscious changes that tell you without even venturing outdoors that it is late fall and that winter is approaching. Work began again and again has nearly defeated me and I’m yearning for some silence, lack of thought, and perspective.