And so, it snows. Big flakes blowing around. Kids are wearing parkas. The wind blows me helpfully to work in the morning, then freezes my face on the way home. At the post office today, three packages. Kurt Cobain's Journals, Micheal Palin's Himalaya and a gift from the real estate agents. This last provokes much hilarity at home, being a full set of barbecue implements.

Work is painful and beautiful at the same time. A women's group, and their lives have been unimaginably hard. Substance abuse, violence, children taken away, residential schools... and yet, they love to laugh, and to make others laugh. I realize, as always, that I am swallowing everyone's emotions and can't eat. A weekend workshop usually caused me to lose about five pounds. Don't know how much i'll lose in two weeks. Today my co-worker left me alone with the group, and we did some circle work. Lots of tears. At the end of the day he said to me, "I swear 9am was about an hour ago." I replied, "Maybe that's what tells us we're doing what we're supposed to be doing, that we don't watch the clock." I also know that compared to 12 hour days at the prison, 9-4 and going home for lunch seems like a picnic.

One of the men I worked with at the prison tried to kill himself on the weekend. And he was quite close to getting out.