Only 60 degrees this morning! The house is pleasantly cool, and I am actually wearing long sleeves. What a welcome change.

I have a bunch of things to do today. Much of it is the yard stuff I've been unable to manage during the heat wave . . . mowing and trimming and weeding; and I need to run errands and wrap my nephew's graduation present and figure out what I'll be wearing this weekend: a task that seems difficult and strange because I haven't gone anywhere overnight for a very long time.

James left yesterday morning and I cried, as I always do. And then I pulled myself together and managed to finish up the epic editing project that's been consuming me for the past several months. After we get back from Vermont, I've got a stack of smaller projects to work through, but mostly I'll need to focus my attention on Frost Place prep.

I'm undergoing all of the awkwardness of transition right now--heading off to visit my parents and my sister's family for the first time in more than a year; watching my sons lope off into the sunset; trying to reconfigure my sense of self--yet again--from primary caretaker to loving observer; crossing over into teaching and leading, after months spent as a manuscript nurse; wandering around the house, trying to find a cool room of my own; and meanwhile the street construction never seems to end, and I hate how I look in all clothes.