"Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them."
   ~Lev Tolstoy

I've been reading Tolstoy again. Tolstoy, since college, has been linked in my mind with lazy, hot summers, alcohol, and a restless desire for change. This summer he is making me dissatisfied with the arrangement of my home. I want to pull out everything, pile it all in the center of the house, purge and re-order. I'm not doing it because my kitchen is unfinished, and I have no place to put the kitchen things except where they are, until it is done.

I have a huge desire to store all the unattractive things away somewhere - avaliable, but unnoticed, and replace them with loveliness. We don't have a lot of unattractive things, but those that we have are essentials, I can't donate them or throw them away. They peek out from beneath the bed or beside the screen.

I want desperately to be helpful in accomplishing our summer tasks, but Tolstoy's infectious restlessness makes it hard to stick to a task. I'm distracted by the number of projects that await me, by the hugeness of my goals, so instead I nurse my baby slowly, moving from the tales in Divine and Human, to Anna, to Pierre and Natasha. I plan a good deal, drink vodka with limes and anticipate the changes I will make someday soon. Life is good.