Yesterday I started and finished a little editing project, worked on a poem, made sauce with the last of the house-ripened tomatoes, finally planted my garlic, did a bit of raking, hung clothes on the basement lines, answered emails, brought in firewood, reorganized some drawers, and otherwise trickled my way through a list of small chores and obligations. It was pleasant to have time to sort through these minor tasks, to be mostly off the clock but also busy.

Because I have to work both a weekday and a weekend schedule, and because so much of my work happens from home, and because all of it involves reading and writing, I find it hard to figure out how to separate my private tasks (whatever they are) from my contractual ones. Revising a poem is unpaid and personal, but it directly affects my teaching and performance life. Digging in the garden and folding laundry and cooking a meal are household tasks that do not ostensibly involve writing, but they are the subject matter and rhythm of my days, and thus show up in my poems, and thus affect my teaching and performance . . . and you can see how this tangle perpetuates.

Not that I am complaining. I'm extremely fortunate to be juggling this life, but juggle is an operative word.