Tom spent the weekend fixing things--peeling trim, a broken barn door, a rotted-out panel beside the bulkhead. I spent the weekend mowing grass and harvesting garlic and sorting through books . . . always a terrible job because owning too many books is my only packrat symptom. I was ruthless (for me), so the A-P shelves are looking somewhat airier this morning, and the Goodwill pile in the basement is looking large. But Q-Z has yet to be tackled.

Last week I also gave away most of my canning jars, all of my chicken-rearing supplies, and a bunch of extra garden tools. I feel as if I am shedding a skin.

So far, though, no one has even looked at our house. The shedding may be pointless.

Today: dog groomer, dentist, grocery store, post office, bank. Then home, and mowing and picking beets and sweeping floors and editing an academic book and copying out The Duino Elegies and trying to find a new doorway into my own writing. I am not in the zone, to put it mildly; and I have not been there for a long time. Everything I do manage to crank out is so beastly to make. It would be a relief to enjoy myself again.