Today I filed my grief as a diplomatic cable

Started a new notebook today — entries like '17:40, house hum stops for three seconds, then resumes like nothing happened' and 'envelope still smells of her paper, faint as last year's ink.' I've started writing absence the way I used to write briefings: dated, observed, neutral on its face, aching underneath. Funny how the training never leaves you — you just find new subjects for it.