Rain and drizzle all day yesterday. When Paul and I went out for a walk around Back Cove, spring came out to greet us: cool, humid, the breeze a mild hand in our hair. My glasses were spattered with rain. The tide was out; we smelled sea-mud and salt. Gulls prodded the briny rivulets, and the bare-armed linden trees along the gravel path glittered in the mist.

More rain on the way today. The garden is glad. Everywhere, green is spiking and uncurling. For dinner last night, I cut a handful of new sorrel, some infant chive shoots. Blue scylla is beginning to open; yellow and violet crocuses gleam. So far I've planted peas, radishes, arugula, spinach, and every day I run out to see if they've sprouted yet.

Now, in the dark hour, Tom is making a sandwich for work. Paul is sleeping. The cat is licking a catnip mouse. I am not hauling the trash to the curb, though I should be. Within an hour, after I start laundry and wash breakfast dishes, I'll read some Rilke and Blake and begin working on a student poetry contest I've been asked to judge. Eventually I'll get to my editing-du-jour: a book about community organizing in Boston Chinatown; a new translation of a 1980s Brazilian novel.

Tonight's menu at Cafe Quarantine: falafel, whole-wheat pita, carrot-kohlrabi slaw, yogurt-tahini sauce. I'm making the falafel from my father's home-grown dried baby limas. The carrots are also my father's, from last fall's storage crop. The kohlrabi I bought on Sunday--the last day I was inside any sort of store. The boy and I might make the pitas together. Probably I'll slice up some oranges for dessert, unless P is in a cookie-baking mood.

In the evenings, we've been playing cards, reading books, listening to music. We drift off to our own rooms and back together into the common ones. We have candles at dinner, and cloth napkins, and pretty dishes. We sit by the fire and watch idiotic YouTube videos. We complain when we learn that the Red Sox ace needs Tommy John surgery, as if he had any chance of pitching this year anyway. We argue about whether or not unicycles are the world's stupidest form of transportation. Tempers are reasonably serene, though gloom settles upon us and we're all strangely exhausted, as if we've been up all night in a bus station.

I call my parents often. I talk to my older son every afternoon. I text my sister. I talk to my Monson and Frost Place teams. I chat with the managing editors at UMass Press. I check in with friends. I push myself to be sociable. It feels important.

Thankfully today is Friday, so tomorrow Tom can stay home for two days in row.

Thankfully we all love each other.