Autumn really has arrived: I wore long pants all day yesterday, and a long-sleeved shirt, and soon I'll be putting on socks and a sweater and closing all of the windows and thinking about lighting an evening fire in the woodstove. Yesterday I tore out my sad cucumber plant and made a jar of gherkin pickles using the tiny fruits I stripped off the vine. I stuffed peppers with eggplant, sausage, and rice, and I cooked tomato sauce, and I spread compost around lily plants. I read poems and I read a novel and I talked on the phone with my mother and my son. I played cribbage with Tom, and I went for a walk to the meat market, and I discussed sheep-raising with the guy across the counter. I listened to a small amount of baseball and I watched Foxy Brown.  I washed sheets and hung them on the line to dry. I made the bed. I washed dishes. I considered a manuscript.

It's been good to have a few days filled with this sort of desultory busyness: reacquainting my thoughts with my hands, my daydreams with the season.

I'll be turning 55 in a month. I'm coming to a version of terms with my carapace. What else can I do? I'm happy to be alive.