The forecast was spectacularly gloomy--rain, frost, snow, wind--but the reality is tame. It's a regular cold spring morning in Maine . . . rainy and dank, temperature in the low 40s . . . but no snow, nothing close to frost, a vague breeze. No reason to make a fuss. Flowers are bright; peas and spinach are cheerful; the small leaves on the maples are tender and strong.

Tom and Paul are still asleep. The cat is perched on his yellow chair, recovering from a dash into the rain. I am sitting in the shadowy living room as grey daylight blinks through the windowpanes.

I've been reading Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter, a fat trilogy novel I wanted to own as a teenager but was afraid to ask my mother to buy because the cover was too sexy. As a result, I'm reading it now, for the first time. The cover is disappointingly tasteful, but the translation is much better than the one I would have waded through then. I'm actually quite impressed by this novel. Undset's father was an archeologist who studied medieval Norway, so she grew up surrounded by artifacts. Her writing is simply and clear but it's also casually immersed in the details of 14th-century Norway. Everything about the place and landscape and material culture feels real, but also not over-researched, as some historical novels can be. Yes, definitely, there's a Romance overtone, 1920s-style, but that collision between the sensibility of the author and the intense evocation of time and place has a lot of charm. Which is to say: Undset leaves Ivanhoe in the dust. It's a fine quarantine book.

So today I will hang around in old Norway, where a little spring snow doesn't upset anyone. I'll copy out some Rilke sonnets. I'll spend some time with my friend's novel manuscript. I'll walk outside in the rain. I'll cook something or other. Last night we had fish cakes with leftover Arctic char and roasted Brussel sprouts tossed with baby garden greens. Tonight, maybe I'll make macaroni and cheese. Maybe something else. I'm unorganized today, which is different from disorganized . . . less chaotic, open to whatever, willing to punt, also happy enough to fall down a rabbit hole into some unexpected project.

And now here comes a bit of sky-snow, more like thick rain, and perhaps it is thick rain, an illusion of flake. The northern garden is indifferent.

They stepped out into a fog so dense that they could only see a few steps in front of them amidst the trees. The closet trunks were black as coal; beads of moisture clung to every branch and twig. Small patches of new snow were melting on the wet soil, but beneath the bushes tiny white and yellow lilies had already sprouted flowers, and it smelled fresh and cool from the violet-grass. (Undset, KL)