It's cold outside. I won't say I've lost my spring optimism, but I will say that digging seems farther away than I'd like. I'm itching to be back in the garden . . . to learn how the iris and lilies I planted last fall survived the winter, to lay out my new garden boxes, to scrape back the mulch around the garlic sprouts, to breathe in the scent of thawing soil.

Instead, I'm slipping on the ice and listening to the furnace burn up our paychecks.

But I will not repine. Good stuff is happening, despite the furnace. I'm still immersed in my high school poetry residency. Lots of people have signed up for the workshop-for-teachers class I'm leading in Augusta early April. I've been invited to teach a poetry master class in New Hampshire in June. I'm leading an afternoon essay workshop in Bangor at the end of March, and that, too, looks like it's filling. I hope, hope, hope that my poetry master class for 25PearlStreet will run, but I won't know the class size till we get closer to the start date.

The fact is: for the first time ever, I'm actually working steadily as a writing teacher. It's a blip on the chart, no doubt. But it sure feels good.