Last night's poetry salon was a party. Usually five or six of us show up; last night we had twelve stuffed into Zanne's living room, plates filled with food, small constellations mingling and making jokes about how to dredge up small talk. It was quite funny and also fun, though I wondered how the actual writing and sharing would go. Turns out it went beautifully . . . so many good drafts, and I also managed to write a good one, a scrawl that seemed to leap almost fully formed onto the page and made me feel dizzy afterward. This writing salon has been such a rich part of my life for the past year or so, such an important part. It makes me feel excited and humble and embraced, but also it's been a deep relief to tell myself I am glad I moved to Portland because otherwise I would not have this. My grief for Harmony has been real, but also a considerable burden. Grief is a stranglehold. I crave not-grief and also feel guilty about not-grief. But this writing salon has given me a place to examine and celebrate it.

* * *

Today, the editing project gets to stay in bed, or at least sleep late. I've got to focus first on class planning, and then I need to work on last night's poem blurt, and then I need to vacuum and wash floors, and then, maybe, the editing project can crawl back onto the desk.

Outside, the dark air glistens with fog, the remnants of last night's rain coiling into strings of mist and cloud. In a moment I will heave myself off this couch and start gathering compost and recycling pails for the curb; I'll strip sheets and load the washing machine; I'll remake the bed, I'll wash breakfast dishes, I'll undergo the exercise class, I'll trudge forward into dutiful engagement with daylight.

Still, all last night I dreamed about my new poem . . . I needed to hurry up and write it, or it would fade, I'd never find it again, it would be gone, a nothing, a wisp; do it now, my brain prodded me, do it now. But when I woke I remembered that the poem was real. I had it. It was on paper, it was saved, I hadn't lost it, my brain had been wrong. Just waking up to think It exists made me so happy.