It’s Sunday, a gorgeous day here in Arizona, with cool autumn temperatures in the mid-60s and lots of blue skies and sunshine. I feel good. I am alive and well.

This morning I got up early to work on Final Draft, a book – probably my last one – which is one part memoir and two parts meditation on what has meant to live my life by the power of stories. With the help of my pal Hugh Downs (himself a lifelong amateur scientist and a member in good standing of our Beyond Institute of advanced theoretical physics) I completed a section on quantum theory and human mortality, which sounds larger and far more daunting than it is. But a life such as mine – and, I venture, such as yours – lived between the imaginative/explanatory powers of the Cosmos defined by science and the explanatory/imaginative powers of our lives defined by stories would hardly be complete without it, with a narrative merging the two storylines into a plausible afterlife.

I do love to write in the morning! And my good day was just beginning.

Nic came home from Tucson and after some grocery shopping he made us a beer-battered fish ‘n’ chips lunch. Tonight San and I will enjoy the company and conversation of our friends Sarah, Brad, Belle, and Dan, and dine on chicken enchiladas accompanied by maybe a glass or two of fine white wine. On the way home we will stop by Jeff and Angela’s to pick up some of young Anna’s amazing homemade cookies.

All in all, it’s a wonderful day as far as I can see. And I am grateful for it.

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One of the more curious aspects of being “in remission” occurred to me when I was working on my book, Final Draft. Back in September when I started writing what I still envision to be an adventure story about a boy who followed a white rabbit down a hole and who then grew up to be a curious fellow indeed, I knew I needed something to preface that old rabbit story. I needed something that combined my lifelong interest in reading and in crafting narratives with a final “summing up,” by which I mean some useful conclusions about what those narratives and living by the logic of them have meant in my life and what I have learned along the way.