Tomorrow was supposed to have been our last day in this house. By our original agreement, we rented this house only until April 30th. But a couple of days ago, we signed a new lease to give us another year here. I feel profoundly grateful for this -- to have left now, with the first leaves just beginning to come out on the strawberry grape vines and the cherries still tiny on the tree outside the kitchen window, with the hillside covered in poppies and buttercups, to have left when the fig trees are just putting on their first leaves like green flames at the tips of their fingers, to have left now would have broken my heart. 

But the Signora, whose house this is and who told us very clearly when we first rented it that it is not for sale and it is not even for long-term rental, has, out of her kindness, allowed us another year here, another year in our haven above the sea.

I am very lucky and I am very grateful for many things. Here are some of them:

Today I talked to a dear friend of mine for a while. Her friendship is precious to me.

Lately, I have been painting with egg tempera, losing myself in the joy of it.

We have found people here in this little town who share our politics and our ideals -- and they own the pub!

We are having fresh peas with dinner.

The sky over the sea is watercolor.

There is more, of course -- the boys, Jonathan, another old friend from Colorado Springs I talked to earlier this week, my much beloved brother. But I don't have pictures of those people today.