Our little spring vacation is over: this weekend we'll start dropping back into the chill, and temperatures on Monday won't rise out of the 20s. But the birds aren't daunted. They're singing and singing in the dusky dawn, so I think I won't be daunted either: I will hang clothes on the line, and watch them flit and sail in the cold and sunny wind.

I'll be teaching this afternoon. So first thing this morning, I'll run out to the fish market and pick up an order of shellfish. I'm going to make Portuguese seafood stew for dinner: an olio of mussels, clams, hake, and chourico. It's a favorite with my shellfishing-adoring boys.

Last night Tom cooked flank steak over the fire, and we sat outside in chairs set up out of the mud, admiring the flames, eating some kind of amazingly delicious soft Italian cheese Tom had brought home, being too cold but happy. It's so pleasant to be outside again. Earlier in the day Paul and I had gone on a long brisk errand-running walk, and the air was like wine, and we felt as if the wobbly world was righting itself. I know the time order is all messed up in this paragraph, but I'm just trying to explain our communal cheer. Yesterday was a day to believe in.