This week's activities: solidifying a syllabus for an upcoming school visit, editing a book about writers and their mentors, rehearsing for a weekend band gig, copying out more of Beowulf, considering how I might invent the story of the unnamed women in Beowulf, pruning raspberry canes in the cold rain, digging up garden soil in the cold rain, baking bread, hanging laundry, writing introductions for visiting poets at the Frost Place, helping my overwrought son memorize his giant part in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, cleaning up after the aged dog, reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, reading Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen, reading the poems of Auden, talking with a young and anxious poet about how he might think about organizing his manuscript, driving multiple 60-mile round trips to fetch overwrought children from school, judging a large regional poetry contest, hauling firewood in the cold rain, revising poems, preparing numerous sit-down meals, wondering why the washing machine seems to be leaking, cheating on a crossword puzzle, attending a high school track meet in the cold rain, harvesting dandelion greens in the cold rain, and helping my overwrought son parse out his distress about the situation in Baltimore.

Yesterday I noticed that my husband had written on a form: "Dawn works 10 hours per week."

I am trying not to think too hard about this.