Lots and lots of people showed up to ski on Saturday, so our gig was bustling. And then I drove home Sunday morning, and Tom and I went for a 4-mile walk around Back Cove and its assorted streets. Already the cove is filling with birds, and I am excited to see what happens there once the spring migration begins in earnest. It's clearly a stopping place for shorebirds in transition, and I look forward to a glimpse into the mysteries of dowitchers and grebes. After all these years in the woods, I'm not really that familiar with the varieties of shorebirds.

Saturday night, as I was talking with my friends in Wellington about some goofy thing this guy that Tom works with did with ratchet straps, bald tires, and a snow-covered Portland Street, I suddenly said, "The central Maine diaspora! That's what we are!" My friends laughed, but I felt so much better. Finally I had a label for myself: I'm still from there; my thoughts and reactions are linked to that place; but here I am, trying to work out a way to be in this other situation.

In other words, I'm the person who starts digging up her front yard, by hand, in March, just before the giant snowstorms hit. No time can be wasted.

And we've got another storm on the way, all ready to disrupt my Poetry Out Loud gig on Wednesday and possibly cancel my classes again and definitely require us to shovel 18 inches of concrete-heavy glop out of our driveway again. Blah. But I am loving the time change--yesterday's long bright evening was tonic.