It is still a pressing, breathless sort of heat out there. A sigh moved through the top of the willow oak, and then stillness.

Watt likes to tell me what to do. "Don't be washing those dishes," he says. "You're supposed to be writing."

But I'm not washing dishes. I'm standing with my hands in the water, staring out the window.

I'm moving from a day full of talk, into a space of intention.