Greetings from the homeland.

At daybreak I sit in a window overlooking a busted-up foundation, a woody swale, some junky fence parts and tired vehicles, and further a trio of brightly half-painted clapboard buildings--yellow, blue, dark red--and further Route 15 with its occasional log trucks and pickups, and further, across the road and up a hill, the former Monson Elementary, now a community center, clinic, and library. There's considerable snow here, in every shady patch, in every filthy plow pile, but it's fading from south-facing yards and foundations. In the east the sun is rising through the trees. The sky is hazy and pale, darker on the horizon.

Tom is still abed, but when he gets up we'll trudge over to the general store and find something for breakfast.  Last night we hung out with artists at the bar, and I spent a fair amount of time talking to a local man who was fascinating on the subjects of paper mills, drag racing, and hermits. 

Now, this morning, I must reconfigure my brain for teaching, though I don't see why those subjects can't come into it.