Yesterday evening devolved into drizzle and mist. I lit a fire and baked potatoes and braised a chuck roast in red wine and fresh sage and thyme. And then I fell asleep on the couch at eight.

I worked hard all weekend: first, with that compost-mulch project I already told you about and then, yesterday, breaking sod in the front yard to extend an existing flower garden (the one known as Lantern Waste). I'm going to plant low hedge along the sidewalk--cushion spurge, I hope, which is sturdy and bright and does well in non-optimal conditions such as sidewalk sand.

So today I'll go back to editing, refreshed from three days of physical labor and from plenty of associated sleep. I'm also considering taking my first trip to the grocery store, where I haven't been since early March. Now that a friend has sewn us some masks (my sewing machine is broken), I feel like I ought to be able to occasionally go into a building. I don't much want to, but I'm also out of cat food. Now may be the time.

It was also a good weekend for reading . . . a long talk with Teresa about Rilke; some revision of my own work. I managed to read a batch of residency applications, to make progress on a couple of manuscripts. What I did not do was clean the bathrooms, so I guess that will be this morning's pre-editing chore.

Such a little piece of property. So much work to keep it up. I am not complaining at all. My year of melancholy in the seaside apartment certainly taught me a lesson about labor.

Dusting the Parlor 

Dawn Potter 

I have nothing to say about anything. 

Yet I am my own mistress,
To myself.

[from A Month in Summer]