Some Tuesdays I see no one. The work is quiet and done at home, and a whole day can pass where the only voice is the radio and the only face is the cat's.
On the bad version of that day I stay in what I slept in until three and feel, by evening, faintly unwell in a way that has nothing to do with being unwell.
On the better version I get dressed. Properly. Not for anyone. There's a particular shirt, soft indigo chambray, gone to the state cotton reaches after years of washing where it's more skin than garment. I button it to the top, which I can't explain and won't try to, and roll the sleeves. I put in my mother's gold hoops, the small ones, the earrings I never really take off even on the days I take them off.
Then I go and sit at the same desk and do the same work I'd have done in pyjamas.
The work isn't better. I want to be clear about that. The sentences I tidy for a living aren't sharper because I'm wearing my mother's earrings.
But there's a difference between being dressed and being covered, and the days no one's watching are exactly when that difference belongs only to me. Getting dressed for other people is half a performance, and you can hide inside a performance. Getting dressed for an empty house is just deciding you're worth the small bother of it. Some days I decide I am. Some days the chambray stays folded on the chair and so do I, and I try not to make either one mean too much.