Thursday before dawn: cold, dark, but the house is cozy and the little tree is bright. I'm glad to be home, glad that I won't be on the road again until mid-December, two weeks in my own bed, no weekend classes, a chance to finish editing projects, get Christmas shopping done, settle into winter.

This morning I'll be at my desk, then a walk, groceries, housework, and tonight I'll go out to write: a sturdy, steady sort of day. I've caught up with my Donne homework, I'm immersed in the Trevor stories, and my brain is pinging after a bubbly day with my smart, excitable students.

While I was making dinner last night, I had a long phone call with a son, silly facetiming with his new kittens but also a busy conversation about a teaching project he and I are hatching: co-leading a scriptwriting session with my Monson kids next semester, which would also give him a chance to share what it's like to be a recent high school grad from central Maine who's trying to make a life in the art world. We're both very excited about this: I mean, what could be sweeter than co-teaching a writing class with my own kid?

So here I am, sitting in my couch corner, in my little house, in my little northern city by the sea, thinking mildly about rejection letters, about laundry, about fixing myself a cup of tea . . . about the poetry of Donne and the stories of Trevor . . . about my faraway sons and the sound of my beloved opening a dresser drawer . . . about the thunk of cat feet as they hit the floor . . . about the suffering of friends and the wobbling of democracy . . . about cranberry-nut bread and warm hardboiled eggs . . . about maps and clues and streetlights . . . about the secrets of children . . .

And meanwhile the mind is a midnight city, a summer pasture, a thunderstorm, a matchbox--