Acadia is famous for its spectacular coastline, but the freshwater views are also magnificent. This is Jordan Pond in a stiff wind, framed by the two hills known as the Bubbles. I also filmed you a glimpse of the bog, and the day's moody clouds.

We walked for a while along the lake, then struck off into the woods on a 2-mile loop-climb among moss and granite cliffs.

Briefly the skies brightened, then morphed back into wind-whipped shadow.

The hike was good, as was my post-hike grilled-cheese sandwich at the Thirsty Whale (I am not making that up, honest). And then we wound our way back to the cottage, and enthusiastic Chuck, and leek and potato soup for dinner.

**

Now, as dawn fingers the horizon beyond the cove, the lobster boat hiccups into life and putts off into its daily round. I don't know what we'll be doing today, other than going out for breakfast with our friend. I need to figure out something or other to make for dinner, preferably involving the sweet potatoes in our pantry basket. I bet we'll go for another walk, as the weather is supposed to deteriorate tomorrow, but I don't know what that walk will be. It's interesting to feel so idle and unplanned, yet also to be reading and revising, prepping for a class, making arrangements with Teresa and Jeannie for our next Poetry Lab Notes post. The days are slow and loose but I am not doing nothing.

I finally managed to get that Ship Harbor video to load, so here it is--a replacement for any newer photos because we didn't visit the park yesterday. Instead, we spent much of it doing this and that for our friend . . . well, mostly Tom doing this and that, tacking up sagging insulation, lugging trash, moving a toolbox, and other such little chores, while I messed around in the garden. Other than that, and making a bolognese sauce for dinner, my biggest accomplishment was revising a chunk of Awake at the Olympus. This actually did feel like a major step--my first real run-through of the manuscript in which I was able to see it with any sort of clarity. I never find it easy to revise at the manuscript level (rather than the individual poem level), but I'm learning that a linked narrative has its own special blinders.

Today we're going out for a hike somewhere, though I don't know where yet. But no one is in a rush . . . slow waking, slow coffee, an idle fire in the stove. The lobster boat putts across the cove. Clouds puff along the horizon. Chuckie crunches his chow.

Sorry I'm a bit late writing to you this morning, but the blog platform has been recalcitrant, the wood stove has been grumpy, and Chuck slept in instead of squeaking Breakfast, breakfast, breakfast! and licking my eyelids at 4:30 a.m.

For some reason the blog does not want to post the photos I took yesterday, but finally it has decided you can look at this picture of Chuck on the screened porch being amazed by a robin. He also had the thrill of seeing his first-ever turkeys yesterday. As far as Chuck is concerned, vacation is fabulous on all counts--visitors! birds! everyone home!--though he remains suspicious of the coffeemaker.

We didn't go on any extravagant hikes yesterday, partly because we were lazy, partly because trails were still sodden from the previous day's rain. But we did drive to Ship Harbor to clamber over rocks and watch the grebes and the eiders dive. I took a short video of high-tide waves crashing on granite, which apparently I'm not permitted to share with you (this blog platform is in a bad mood), but maybe you'd like to look at some lichen instead.

When I wasn't outside I was reading books, doing some mild cooking, taking a yoga class with my friend. I did pound out a little schoolwork, but not much. All day long the clouds were moody and beguiling, and last night's sunset was a stunner. And then I slept all night like I'd been pole-axed. Which is to say, vacation is going quite well so far.

Hey, the big news around here is that Chuck is a champ about vacation. First, he spent the three-hour car ride fast asleep in his crate . . . not a peep out of him the whole way, a vast change from Ruckus, who howled every moment he was in a car. Then, when he arrived, he carefully looked the cottage over, discreetly acknowledged his litterbox, greeted our friend for dinner, slept comfortably in bed all night, and now, this morning, he has enjoyed a good breakfast and is washing his face by the wood stove. He admits to being a little perturbed by the noise of an unfamiliar coffee maker, but otherwise he thinks vacation is extremely fun. (Pardon the unclear picture, but black cats are non-photogenic in low light.)

Tom had packed and loaded the car while I was in class, so we left almost immediately after I finished yesterday, which was good because the nights come in so early now and the island roads are overrun by deer. For years, hunting was prohibited on Mount Desert, so the deer population exploded. I think there is very controlled hunting in Tremont now, but so far it hasn't made much of a dent. The deer are everywhere, and they are not a bit shy. On a five-minute drive to pick up a pizza last night, I was stopped by four in the road at various places, all of them completely indifferent to traffic.

So here we are for a week, ensconced in the little cottage by the cove. Though the sky is beginning to lighten, the water is still invisible in the darkness. But when I open the porch door, I breathe in thick briny sea air and hear the first chuckles of the black ducks waking in the shallows.

Yet now I look up and see that night is rolling up its blanket--Swan's Island hunkers on the horizon, a long blue streak against the paler clouds, and the spruce-crowded coastline curls like crab claws around the little cove. The crackle of an engine kicks at the quiet--a lobster boat starting out on its trap rounds. And I can see that the tide is high, see ripples folding toward the shore, see jagged boulders shrinking into islets. Above everything, blue-gray clouds, low-slung and heavy,  as dramatic as a Turner painting.

It's a dark, wet morning, and I woke too early, mostly because of fretting about packing. We're planning to head to the island right after I finish teaching today. Tom will deal with food and cat packing while I'm at work, but I haven't cast even one thought toward suitcase and book bag, and my overnight brain would not let me forget that.

Now here I sit, still not packing but at least the stupid nighttime worry button has been disengaged. A fire crackles in the stove. Chuckie leans against my shoulder and purrs into my ear. I'm happy we're bringing him along with us to the cottage. I think he'll have fun, once he recovers from his perplexity.

In the meantime, I've got another day of work ahead. It's a very full class, and the drafts that people are writing have been so interesting. I never know what will happen when I create these classes, but the Grimm tales certainly have been potent. Because of how I've designed the prompts, I haven't really been able to write alongside everyone else this weekend, but actually that's been okay. My brain is still full of Awake at the Olympus, and I don't want my imagination to veer away from that concentration. It's gratifying enough to enjoy everyone else's drafts.

Tomorrow, when I write to you, I'll be back on the island, staring out into November light as it unfolds over Goose Cove. Tom is so excited to go. He cannot wait to be there. I'll pack, I'll drive, I'll do all the work, as long as we can leave today, he urged. He knows me: I would be slow, I'd wait till tomorrow morning, I'd milk out one more night at home. But he is eager, eager, and I love that too. So off we go.

It rained yesterday afternoon, and all night, and is supposed to rain today and into tomorrow . . . we haven't had this much precipitation in months. Though temperatures are still on the mild side, I lit a fire in the stove this morning, just to drive off the dankness.

Later this morning I'll be leaping into a brand-new weekend poetry class, but for now life feels pretty calm. And happily I'm also feeling a fresh surge of writing excitement. Yesterday, during our zoom visit, Jeannie and Teresa both gave me so many good ideas for tweaks to Awake at the Olympus. The suggestions are small but significant, and I'm excited to start fiddling with them, once I'm out to grass for the week. I'm so grateful to have such sharp-witted, sympathetic readers. I love the characters in this manuscript. They have come alive to me; they live beyond my imagination now. They are reaching off the page to other readers, and this feels immensely sweet.

My first literary idol was Charles Dickens. His characters slayed me. When I was a little girl, I thought nothing could be more wonderful than to invent such worlds. A lifetime later, I'm not sure I've changed my mind.

Another warmish morning, this time with a soaking rain on the horizon. The air is already full of moisture, and my hair, after reverting to winter straightness, has returned to its curly summer ways. I haven't lit the wood stove in three days, which feels so odd in November. And yet brief daylight, heaps of leaves on sidewalks, bare maples craning over houses: the streets of this little city are a portrait of late autumn.

Yesterday I sent off an editing sample to the author I'm working for, which means I'm on editing hiatus until he responds. So today will be full of this-n-thats: my exercise class at the Y, tidying up my study before I teach in it all weekend, talking with Teresa and Jeannie during our Poetry Lab zoom. I doubt I'll get any raking done outside, given the rainy forecast, but maybe.

I did go out to my writing group last night, and I did produce two so-called drafts, but since I finished Awake at the Olympus I haven't written a real poem. I shouldn't repine over that, but I do. Not writing makes me feel blank, no matter how busy I'm keeping myself, or how much I need a rest. Right now I'm not particularly tired or overwhelmed by other obligations. I could certainly fit a new poem project into the interstices, but no. I have reverted to once, long ago, last week, I was a poet.