I woke up this morning to the excellent news that the Blue Jays knocked superhuman pitcher Shohei Ohtani out of the game in the sixth inning, winning the contest despite an injury to one of their best hitters in the previous day's eighteen-inning grind. Ah, baseball. You are such a romance.

Now Little Chuck has had his breakfast, Tom and I have had our coffee, and I am sitting here in my couch corner contemplating the day ahead. I had a good night's sleep, and I'm feel vastly lightened, now that I've finished that essay. I turned in my first CavanKerry assignment as well, so I'm altogether less overwhelmed than I was. Today I've got to work on high school plans and return to my academic copyediting project, but later I might actually have a chance to work in the garden, or even look at my own poems. And tonight T and I are going out to a Jonathan Richman show, so altogether the day will have a novel flavor.

Yesterday Teresa and Jeannie and I talked about moving forward with the Substack journal we've been planning but have thus far not executed. For all three of us Baron's death has been a blow, not least because he was the person who brought us together in the first place. We've been churning in a sort of group maelstrom over it, none of us able to make much progress with other work. So it was a relief to discover we were able to compile a few sensible plans about moving forward with the journal.

Sunshine today. 

Today is my younger son's 28th birthday, and I wish him the sweetest of days in far-off Brooklyn. He is one of the great joys of my life, so full of feeling and thought, so wholehearted about what matters. He remains my most persistent phone caller, the family member most likely to get a poem read to him, a sports romantic, lover of rivers, whisperer of cats. How I adore him.

Yesterday I got a solid start on my two editing projects and, thank goodness, I finally finished the Baron essay and was able to send it to his wife for her okay. Today I'll run it past the rest of the contributors, and then I'll submit it to the journal editor, and then, I hope, I can take a deep breath and let myself off the hook. Writing that piece has been a massive undertaking. From the start I have felt unqualified, unready, unhappy, and also unable to say no. So I did it, and now there are twelve manuscript pages of shadow.

This morning I'll get onto my mat and return to my editing jobs, and in the afternoon I'll zoom with Jeannie and Teresa. I'd like to think I'll finish the manuscript commentary today, but we'll see. That kind of focus can be slow work. The press sent me one of Baron's author letters to show me how he was thinking and talking about the collections he edited, so in that regard I am still carrying his weight, even without the essay around my neck. But I guess that is my job right now.

Anyway, the sun will shine. Little Chuck will sit at the open front door watching the leaves blow. I'll pour tea and read Virginia Woolf over lunch. The Carolina wren will sing in the bare lilacs. Far to my south a hurricane will shred lives. The abyss is difficult to fathom.

It's 34 degrees this morning, just shy of a frost. I got a lot done in the garden yesterday, though not everything I'd hoped to accomplish. But the furniture is stowed, I cut up sticks and bagged them, and  I pruned the massive elderberry and bagged the trimmings. I also made good progress on cutting back perennials. I hope I can get more of that finished this week, as well as do some transplanting, but these jobs always take longer than I think they will.

The next few weeks are going to be hectic. I'll be teaching or traveling for three weekends in a row, plus embarking on my usual Monson jaunts. But at least I'll be sleeping in my own bed for the next seven days. This morning I'll go for my walk, and then I'll turn my thoughts to finishing the Baron essay. This week I've got a poetry manuscript to comment on and a small academic project to copyedit. I need to prep for my high schoolers and go over my long-poem syllabus and show up for some meetings. I've got to keep up with house chores and cook meals and, with luck, get back into the garden. Life feels kind of dizzying, but the great news is that I am not sick and my car isn't terrifying and my cupboards are full of ingredients.  Also, my kitten is no longer sad.

I still don't know when I'll be able to think seriously about my own poems. I keep writing them, tucking my drafts around the edges of obligation. I keep reading and reading. But there has been no space to plan a collection. Maybe once I finish the essay, I can hoard that space for myself. Life seems so eager to crowd me out.

I spent yesterday morning in the garden: cleaning out the last of the delicate crops--peppers, eggplant, okra. We haven't had a frost yet, but they'd clearly stopped growing, so goodbye. I pulled carrots and dismantled the insect nets, and did a thorough weeding of the vegetable beds. I planted, then mulched the garlic. I collected the outside chairs, drained the hoses, stowed the table, the fire grate, and the cold frame. Today T and I will finagle the chairs and hoses through the cellar hatch for storage, carry the snow shovels out to the shed, and then that stage of fall cleanup will be done.

Today I'll work on pruning perennials, bagging sticks, and, I hope, splitting my hostas so I can fill some blank spaces in the backyard beds. I might start raking leaves into the gardens, though there are many more leaves to fall.

Baron's pink dahlias still bloom bravely. The orange nasturtiums and white zinnias are hanging on. The blueberry bushes and the Japanese maple are brilliant crimson. Despite the drought the yard glows red and gold and green. Kale, chard, and lettuce flutter in the vegetable garden. The sturdy herbs are thriving; even the basil, though wan, is hanging onto life.

In the cellar, the firewood is stacked. Boxes and buckets are filled with kindling. The furnace is clean. The tank is full. There is a basket of potatoes and onions. Drying shirts and pants tremble on the clotheslines. Upstairs in the freezer are bags of wild mushrooms, green beans, kale, corn, peppers; boxes of tomato sauce, peaches, chicken stock. In the refrigerator: peppers, carrots, cabbage, celery, beets--some of it mine, all of it local.

I feel rich. It's not like I've forgotten that obscene car-repair bill and the rest of our endless suck of expenses. But the homestead snugness of late autumn is so reassuring. We have food. We have heat. Let the storms arise.

Saturday, dark and cool. A fire in the stove. Hot coffee in my cup. I dreamed that Chuck was dreaming, and that I had access to the rolling receipt for the expense of what he was dreaming: $4,000 and counting. What might a little cat dream that would cost so much? Perhaps pushing crystal off counters or eating an expensive parakeet. The dream-within-a-dream did not divulge.

 

Hey, how about those Canadians and their pinch-hit grand slam? I suppose I ought to be rooting against the Blue Jays, given that they're divisional foes of the Red Sox. But I've seen so many of these players in their youth: the Jays' AA squad is the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, which regularly plays our Portland Sea Dogs. So I have been watching Vlad Guerrero and Bo Bichette since they were baby big leaguers and am feeling motherly pride in them.

This weekend will be my last restful one for a while. Next weekend I'll be teaching, the following one I'll probably be in Vermont, then I'll be teaching again, and then Thanksgiving will be upon us. So today and tomorrow I'm going to plant garlic, stow away hoses and outside furniture, continue cutting back my perennials, and otherwise try to catch up before the cold decides to arrive. The days won't just be chores: this afternoon T and I might go to a movie; tomorrow we're having dinner with friends.

I am looking forward to being outside, to the crunch of leaves under my old sneakers, to the satisfactions of mulching a garlic bed for winter. I like the sleepiness of autumn; I like saying, "Goodnight till spring."

Yesterday I finished a small editing assignment in the morning, then spent much of the rest of the day fine-tuning the Baron essay, reading The Waves, reading "Song of Myself." I baked an apple cake so that my neighbor and I could have a snack while we watched the new British baking show episode . . . the exact same cake I'd baked the day before for my poetry group, assuming I'd have leftovers for our tea party. That was not the case: apparently poets really like apple cake. The recipe is my tweaked version of a Joy of Cooking standard, and one of these days I'll type it up and share it with you because this cake is a winner: beautiful, delicious, and quick, especially if you possess one of those fine old-fashioned apple peeler-corer-slicers.

Once I finish this essay, I'm hoping I can transfer some of that momentum to poetry. I need to start thinking seriously about organizing a new collection; I need to start trudging through my own rough and rocky fields. I'll be on the road so much during the next few months. I've got so many work and family obligations. But surely the poems will come to me. Because I want them so much.

I spent much of yesterday with young Chuck, my sticky shadow, who preferred to keep me in sight at all times. Every time I sat down, there he was, coiling himself against shoulder or hip, climbing into my lap to lick my face. At night he immediately got into bed with me (which has not generally been his pattern) and curled against my cheek for the next eight hours. That was annoying, but I more or less put up with it because the poor kid is clearly in need of reassurance. Here's hoping he has a more relaxed Friday.

Today I'll get onto my mat and then turn my thoughts to a small editing project before going back to revising the Baron essay. My work life, it seems, is about to undergo yet another shift. I was contacted a few days ago by the editor-in-chief of the press where Baron had worked for years as the primary developmental editor: that is, the person who reads accepted manuscripts and shares advice about organization, infelicities, poem choice, and so on--not copyediting (which focuses on line issues such as spelling and punctuation) but holistic commentary on the overall presentation of the collection. The editor-in-chief wondered if I might want to take on this job. I thought about it and decided yes. The work won't accrue into a lot of hours, but it is paid and will allow me to step away, at least occasionally, from the copyediting grind. So I'm pleased . . . to be honest, I'm really kind of chuffed to have been invited to take over for the man. Somehow his generosity continues, even after death.

I should get off this couch and start dragging the recycling and compost outside for pickup, but a fire is crackling in the stove and I would much rather stay here and watch it. Though I dearly love the cottage, I'm glad to be back in my tidy shabby familiar nest. I'll roast mackerel for dinner; the World Series begins tonight. Go, Canadians! Have a sweet day, friends.

I taught all day yesterday--a really good and lively class, I'm glad to report. Then Tom picked me up and drove us home through pouring rain, and after we unloaded the truck, I went out again into the pouring rain to fetch home young Chuck.

So now our little pack has been reunited. Chuck appears to have grown several inches while in custody, and he came home bewildered . . . happy to see us, but very confused by why and what and where. Fortunately, the comfort of bed seems to have reassured him, and I woke up this morning with his cheek pressed against mine, just like old times. In his short life he's had so much uproar: born into chaos, then the coils of foster care, then a calm stint with us, and then suddenly the cat kennel, which I'm sure felt like a return to the dark, no matter how nice they were to him, and I do know they were nice.

Well, today I will devote myself to him. I've got various catch-up things to accomplish--laundry, housework--but I can certainly make the kitten the center of attention if he needs that. I'd like to work on my Baron essay, and I'd like to go out to write tonight. I want to take a walk. I want to wander in my garden. I have a small editing assignment awaiting me, but I won't look at it until tomorrow. Today is about remembering home.