Today is a wonderful day to have behind us.

The highlights are two.

The refrigerator arrived and was installed without a hitch. We are still coming to grips with the magic of having these small cold compartments right there in our kitchen, one even colder than the other. It will change the way we store food.

Second, after some discussion and advanced mathematics the Collar Countdown Clock has been readjusted and now stands at 35. It’s unclear where the error was introduced in our earlier calculations. It’s possible we didn’t account for the gravitational pull of the moon or the birth of Augustus or something. Anyway, by fiat, the new number is the right number.

Other than that, today was a challenging day, rainy and chill outside, inside filled with growing concern around all the physical difficulties that seem to be waxing when one wants them to wane.

“I just look at the person I used to be and I see her getting farther and farther away,” Tanja said.

That was a pretty strong image.

“I guess,” she said, after a while. “I’m getting closer and closer to the person I will be, but I just don’t see her yet.”

Another good image!

Earlier I’d told Tanja about how the two women working at Speilman’s yesterday had been talking about salmon. One woman maintained that salmon was considered the tastiest animal by the rest of the animal kingdom.

“It is?” the other woman said, in the voice of someone ready to believe.

“Think about it. Every animal wants to eat salmon.”

She then named a number of animals that fit that description but stopped short of naming every animal.

“That must be so tough on the salmon,” the second woman said, “knowing all anyone else wants to do is eat them.”

This makes these women sound less than serious, perhaps, but they were just two people working in an almost empty bagel shop passing the time. I thought Tanja would relate to that.

“That is not what salmon are thinking,” Tanja said.

“Well, of course not,” I said, positing that, for one thing, they don’t have language, that we know of anyway, and probably think in a totally different way than we do.

“They’re thinking,” Tanja explained, “‘Why do I have to go up this river? Does anyone get how hard it is to go up? It’s totally the wrong way to be going, but I gotta do it, so here I go.”

Tanja is incredibly good at this sort of projection. For example, I know a tremendous amount about the inner lives of our cats and the sorts of things they are likely to say to each other when we’re not around, each in their own particular voice, reflecting their own particular weltanschauung.

And not just the cats; we have stuffed animals who possess complex and nuanced inner lives that need to be considered and respected.

It’s not nuts. It’s storytelling. It’s really powerful. And when she conjures a negative image–a healthy, vibrant version of herself receding into the distance–that can be quite powerful too.

I personally don’t see that person receding. I see Tanja in this body that is damaged but fundamentally strong and getting stronger. And this Tanja I see is, essentially, a positive person. Tonight just before bed, she made an announcement out of the blue, as it were.

“Tomorrow,” she said, “I am going to reconnect with my grit.”

“What?”

She was sleepy and I wasn’t sure if grit was like RIO or STEMS or DVT or FASTHUGS or any of the other acronyms one picks up on the journey.

“My grit,” she said. “Gotta git with my grit.”

Then she was asleep.

For the last couple days, Tanja’s been looking for this particular song that has been in her head. She found it today and shared it with me. So I’ll share it with you: