Monday morning again, but this time a cool one: it's just 48 degrees here in Portland, and I am very glad to be wrapped in a thick bathrobe and drinking hot coffee.

I've got various things to do today, much of it niggly house and garden stuff, as I am prepping to go to Vermont later this week, where I'll be helping out with family stuff for an indefinite period . . . a few days, ideally, but possibly longer if my parents and sister need me. I'll keep working while I'm there, teaching and editing and reading mss and such, but also taking over their cooking and housework and doing garden chores and so on. Wish us all luck.

In the meantime, though, I'm enjoying being home. I had a great class session on Sunday, thanks to the brilliance of the participants, who had such wonderful conversations about each other's manuscripts and seemed to love playing around with the practice poems I gave them. I guess I'd have to say that this class is a success, at least so far.

My new studio setup is working out very well: after a year of awkwardness, taking part in a zoom session has become comfortable and predictable. And when class is over I can wander downstairs and check baseball scores, and Tom can say, "Want to go for a walk?," and we can step out into the late summer flowers, and life, for a few moments, feels easy and relaxed.

This afternoon Teresa and I will talk about the Iliad, and maybe I'll also get a chance to work on my poem draft, or maybe I'll just be moving firewood and tearing tired plants out of the garden. The tomatoes are wearing down, though the peppers are still going strong, and all of my fall crops--kale, broccoli, fennel, radishes, carrots--are delighted with the cooling temperatures.