It rained all day yesterday, so I started a fire in the wood stove early. Through the window I watched the doughty green shoots thrusting upward through the wet soil, so brave and tough under the cold drizzle.

Mostly the day was peaceful and manageable: editing, reading Rilke, compiling Monson student work, talking to my son, baking a cake. I don't have much of an urge to write poems, but that doesn't feel especially disturbing. Like you,  I'm disoriented and periodically despondent, and very tired. But as a long-time freelancer, I'm used to home schedules. I'm more concerned that Tom is still working out of the house, that my Chicago son is alone and edgy in his apartment, that my parents and in-laws are so vulnerable . . .

Here's my tiny new cubbyhole, a strange little space jutting off our bedroom where we used to keep the laundry basket. Tom keeps asking me if I'm sharpening my elbows on the walls: that's how tight it is. But I've got a window and a lamp; my standing desk tucks into it neatly, and a couple of utility shelves fit underneath. A Virus-Room of One's Own. Meanwhile, Paul, across the landing in my ex-study, is laying out his belongings, arranging pillows, playing his music. The delighted cat has moved into his bed.

This evening's quarantine meal: spaghetti amatriciana with my final quart of frozen sauce (from last summer's garden) and a couple of strips of bacon that I need to use up; a salad of grapefruit and lettuce; marble layer cake with chocolate buttercream frosting (yesterday's baking distraction). Tomorrow I'll move on to clam chowder (a pint of frozen clams, milk that won't stay fresh forever, padded out with plenty of potatoes). I'm actually not terrible at meal planning for hermits.