Every night, when the granddaughters are already in their rooms on the upper floor, I sit at my writing desk outside my captain's cabin bedroom and unwind with a finger measure of wine or brandy or rum on the rocks. All the lights are off except for my desk light, which illuminates only my desktop and the special objects I placed on it, for now my red malachite sphere and lode slice of banded, red carnelian and crystal quartz, while everything else around me is in complete darkness. This is the time I review everything good during the day and all possible things that I did or said wrong. I always tell myself, "I survived this day". That one sentence immediately deletes all the unfinished business of the day. I turn to tomorrow's planner and sequence everything I have to do.

Live  by the day, survive. You are alive. You are loved. If not by lovers, by your friends.