I woke up in Wellington on Valentine's morning, after spending a chattery evening in the homeland with two of my best friends in the world. An inch of fresh snow had fallen, and the roads were dicey, and as I drove my phone kept dinging with love greetings from my family.

The kids, of course, were a delight--writing hilarious love poems based on a silly prompt involving conversation hearts. As encouragement I read them the text T had just sent me: "Sure sign of Valentine's Day: Hannaford [a grocery store], dude in flannel obviously on his way home from a manual labor job, glassy-eyed and clutching an orchid to his chest."

As I drove home, I could hear emails boinking into my phone and when I finally got off the road and read them I discovered that (1) a composer wants to put my sonnet "Confused Prayer" to music,  using it as lyrics for a song for mezzo-soprano and piano; and (2) the state poet laureate wants to hire me to teach a statewide online workshop as a pilot for a new project . . . "not just because you probably know more about poetry and teaching than anyone in the state, but also because you know both Maine's rural and urban experiences so intimately." As you might expect, I was floored by each of these offers, by the wording of them, by being seen . . . Do you know what I mean? about how odd that feels, after you've been trudging along, keeping your nose to the ground like a hound on a leash, doing the job you were meant to do, but not really thinking that anyone might be watching?

Anyway: so there was that, and then there was T again, who came home from work and said, "Let's go out to eat!" which is a silly thing to say on Valentine's Day when you don't have reservations anywhere, but we got lucky, and found a table in a Sichuan restaurant and ate dumplings and beef noodles and then strolled through downtown Portland arm in arm, admiring the lights and the faces.

What a good day. What a very good day.