Enjoyable coincidences

This may be of no interest to anyone but me: I am busy these days, differently from before. Instead of being pulled this way and that by a confusion of competing priorities, I allocate time correctly - long enough to do what needs to be done at any given time - and stop when it is time to do so, moving on to the next necessary thing, as if carried by a river, flowing with it peacefully. There is little free time, but no feeling of enslavement, no resentment. This happened for the first time a few days ago, and today it happened again: no panic when faced with a large task. I know when to start, and an inner knowledge makes sure that it gets finished on time, as if functioning at an instinctual level.

The same instinct got me my German dictionary, and my books about writing: I bought them years before I needed them, at second hand dealers, not knowing why except that I wanted them and they were not expensive.The German dictionary is a treasure, big, fat and reliable. and if I did not have it already, I would need to buy one for the translation work I do now  which I never expected to do. Two small gold initials are embossed on the red leather cover. They happen to be my husband's and mine.

I don't believe in events that are 'meant to be'. It's a coincidence, an enjoyable one...

I am reading another Jenny Diski, a collection of essays, columns for newspapers, always clever, but not as deep as the Skating to Antarctica. This one is called A View from the Bed and other observations (Virago, 2003). The first sentence is fun:

"It isn't often that I wake in the early hours of the morning to find a happy ending squatting in the corner of my bedroom."