Home again, and glad to be here. Yesterday's drive was exhausting: drenching rain all the way, terrible visibility on the highway, hours of brake lights and truck splash, plus my tire-pressure light clicked on, which was assuredly nothing, but dashboard warnings always ramp my anxiety. Anyway, I made it home by about 4 p.m., got dinner underway, lit a small fire to chase away the damp, and lay on the couch with a book, all of which improved my state of mind.

My class itself was magnificent, as usual. I love, love, love these kids: so smart, so sassy and opinionated, but also so eager to try new things. And talk! How they love to talk!

The homeland, too, was its usual irresistible self. Most of the remaining leaves have darkened to copper. The tamaracks are golden now, and the air is filled with rain and random gunshots, for deer season opens next weekend and everyone, hunter or not, is getting ready. From the shore of the glassy lake a friend points out the beaver lodge that grows larger by the day. In Wellington we eat steak and wild mushrooms and garden romaine and listen to raindrops clattering slowly onto the metal roof. The house is an island in a forest sea. 

It's been good for me to be back north this season, despite the draining travel. When I'm there, something shifts inside, something returns to itself. I don't know what to call this something, but whatever it is, I don't have it in Portland. I think it is linked to empty stretches of road, to the small circle of sky above the deep forest, to the devotions of my oldest friends, to deep loneliness and extravagant everyday beauty, to the customary travails of survival, to the individualities of time.

I am accustomed to the city now; I enjoy it, even thrive in it. But I have a home that is not my homeland, and a homeland where I have no home. That's just the way it is.

That's just the way it is.