As the election glacier continues its slow devouring crawl, I sit here in Portland, Maine, on a Saturday morning, recovering from an extra-long sleep and watching the sun-shadows quiver on my neighbor's leaf-strewn driveway.

I got most of that giant dirt pile moved yesterday: now I've got two brand-new garden beds waiting for spring, and I still have enough soil left to make one more small backyard patch. I also talked for a long time to both of my sons, and went for a walk in the cemetery with my neighbor, where we were delighted to spot this:

My election tension is ebbing, though I'm still anxious and longing for an official call. As distraction, I'm rereading Iris Murdoch's The Nice and the Good and nibbling away at Byron's Childe Harold. I even did a little revision on a poem. For dinner, I made calzones filled with bacon, kale, sun-dried tomatoes, and mozzarella. And I finally won a cribbage game.

Next weekend I'll be back in the teaching saddle, but this weekend is relatively formless. Maybe I'll sit outside and try to make real headway into my Byron homework. The weather is so mild and sweet. All of these sentences I'm writing seem plain and heavy, like thick slabs of whole-wheat toast. But being an American is exhausting.