Oddly, the birds in rural Vermont are quieter than the birds in Portland at 5 a.m.

My dad got home yesterday afternoon. He is very weak but he is doing okay.

I don't see how they are going to manage without me any time soon. I hope I am wrong about this.

Tom sent me friendly texts about turtles he saw on his walk. It is surprising how much better a friendly text about turtles has made me feel.

Teaching tonight; hoping to find a moment for class prep. If not, I'll be winging it. What else can I do?

I'm reading Tessa Hadley's Free Love and the poems of Andrew Marvell. Here's a bit from "The Garden" that I keep going back to again and again:

Meanwhile, the mind, from pleasures less,

Withdraws into its happiness:

The mind, that ocean where each kind

Does straight its own resemblance find,

Yet it creates, transcending these,

Far other worlds, and other seas,

Annihilating all that's made

To a green thought and a green shade.