We're driving north to close the sale on the Harmony house today. The book is about to shut. It will slide onto the shelf. It will sit unopened. It will collect dust and and damp and mildew. It will be thrown away.

Or that's what my melodramatic self might claim. In fact, I am dry-eyed, at least for the moment. That may be because I am so sick of killing time on the phone with utility companies, and banks, and insurance providers, and their ilk. Or because I want Tom to return to his calm, unfrazzled self. Or because limbo is an unpleasant state of mind.

Yesterday I went for a zigzag walk among the side streets of the neighborhood. I found myself in a little square park at the top of the hill that overlooks the city and the highway and Back Cove and beyond. Portland is a tiny metropolis, yet it buzzes with motion and sound. Buildings tremble skyward. Planes slide down, down, through cloud and fume, toward the tarmac. Signs glitter. Sirens weep. Meanwhile, the bay and the river embrace this crowded rocky little peninsula, wrapped in seawater and wind.

A dog bounces past me, chasing a tennis ball into the weeds. Drizzle films my hood and my glasses.

I am homesick. But after today, it--whatever it is--will have to be different.