I spent a chunk of the weekend tearing out my tomato plants. The fruit had stopped ripening, and it was time to fill a bushel basket with greenies and say goodbye. This week I will slowly tear out the peppers and the eggplant and, sadly, the rest of the sunflowers. They have been a delight all summer, and the garden will be lonely without them.

This morning it's cold, and dark, and a freight train is rumbling north. The Red Sox have played their last game of the season, and winter is on the way. I'm grateful for lamplight and hot coffee and a thick red bathrobe. I have much editing to do, and next week's Monson class to prep, and all of the housework waiting for me that I ignored over the weekend.

I think I'll make clam chowder for dinner. I think I'll pick a giant bouquet of the last of the dahlias.

I'm reading Eavan Boland's Object Lessons, just beginning Leah Umansky's The Barbarous Century. I'm washing hats and scarves and sweaters. I'm nervous about the fate of our nation. In one week I will turn 55.