Words. So many words jostling and competing, some surviving and thriving, while others are left behind to die. The trick was to maintain a watchful eye for the good ones and to immediately welcome them in. On stormy nights the wind whipped wildly along the eaves whizzing down the drainpipe and wrangling with our wrought iron gate in the garden. I wrote late into the night accompanied by the whoosh of the furnace flame, the creaking of our warped wooden floorboards, the whirring of the refrigerator and Duke’s occasional whimpering as he chased rabbits in his dreams. When I hear these sounds today, in other locations, I am immediately back at my old desk in my old room in my old life. Deep into the night in their comfortable company I would write. One word would nudge another and if they had chemistry, they would link arms and together set off to find more words. As they gained in numbers and momentum, pages of work evolved. What a wonderfully satisfying feeling it was to close my notebook after a good session, stretch and crawl into bed…until the following night when I would start wrestling with worry, all over again, wondering if the words would come.