These days, the birds begin their clamor so early. I lie in my cocoon of waking sleep, man and cat coiled against me, and the birds shout, and a train mourns, and the night thins into a brown and fragile quilt, and the window blind taps, taps against the sill, back and forth, back and forth, in a breath that feels as rich as memory.

Already it is 50 degrees outside, and the temperature is supposed to climb into the high 60s . . . our first real warmth this season. The bedroom window is now always open, and yet, just last week, I was lighting fires in the wood stove.

I did a remarkable thing earlier this week: I purchased an air conditioner. This is a shocking development as I have never in my life lived in a home with air conditioning. But the Alcott House's upstairs is stuffy, and Portland is much warmer at night than Harmony was, and we have new wiring in my study, and I have decided that now and then, on the hottest days and nights, we could use some relief. Still, I feel like I've copped out in some way. I've lost my toughness. I've given in to bourgeois comfort. A dishwasher, a new mattress, and now this. At least I still have a clothesline and bitten nails and no microwave.

Today I'll be futzing over that talk I need to give this evening for the program "Found in the Archives: Stories of Buried Treasure." Here's the zoom info, if you're interested. It starts at 6 p.m. ET, and I'll be talking about my approach to creative research.

But first I'll be on my bike, floating among the gravestones at the cemetery, with this soft wind in my face, hoping for the scent of lilacs; with this vague sea-haze draping the houses and shops, among these trudging schoolchildren, these dogs and runners and wandering solitaries.