It’s just the two of us, me and Buzz, in our own private monastery.
The daily routine is simple and rhythmic: wake between 5 and 6, have coffee in bed together for an hour or so, talking through possibilities in the coming day or family issues or whatever is going on in the world.
Then he goes down to the studio to feed the cat and do his hour-long exercise while I shower, dress, make the bed, do my own exercise, and pray through The Magnificat.
If it’s above 20 degrees outside, we walk (below 20 degrees and my lungs ice up); if it’s raining, we still walk, taking umbrellas and heading down our driveway to the quiet, tree-lined rural gravel road where sometimes we don’t meet any cars and sometimes we stop to chat with neighbors going into town or back.
Breakfast follows and then it’s off to our own work, he to his study and me to mine. At lunch we meet up again, take a rest, get back to work, and at 5 pm it’s “wine time,” a ritual my parents always had and one we continue.
Wine and a rosary, usually. More talk. A simple dinner. And to bed, early, with books. Right now I’m reading, for our upcoming neighborhood book club, “Death Comes for the Archbishop” by Willa Cather. But more on that another time.