Except for the fact that T wasn't feeling well, yesterday turned out to be the rest day I needed. I sat in my blue chair beside my study window, where I finished reading and jotting notes about the intro to the 17th-century English poetry anthology that Teresa and I are undertaking. And I made big progress on a poem draft: if it's not done, it's close to done, and I'm pleased and puzzled by it.

Both of my sons checked in to say hello. T and I went for a walk. I made enchiladas with chicken sausage, sweet peppers, and fresh sauce. I read books and drank tea and sat by the fire and solaced T, who had reverted to a couch blanket and a football game.

Is it strange that writing is both exhausting and revivifying? I suppose I could make a comparison to, say, an exercise regimen: in the case of exercise class, I don't want to do it, but I feel much, much better about myself after I do. But I exercise under someone else's instruction and follow someone else's plan. Writing is different because it's my own bag of kittens, and I do want to do it, though I'm not always able to (for reasons of time, or state of mind, or bad decisions that drive an amorphous draft into the ground). Still, it's hard work: it requires my brain to concoct and then hover within an aura of craziness that is also an improvisational bandwagon of skill/experience/conscious experiment (lordy, look at these mixed metaphors go). "Be wild, but use tools," sez the old brain. Maybe it's the wild part that makes the work seem so exciting. There are so few opportunities for a 58-year-old nice American lady to go wild, yet ecstasy is at the root of poetry. Every time I enter into that state with my writing, I am renewed.