It's the last day of January, and the little northern city by the sea is draped in crisp snow. But the days are longer now. I've heard chickadees singing their spring song. Hawks and owls are courting. Snowdrops are budding along warm foundations. Earth is imagining the future.

For me. it's been a nose-to-the-grindstone week: editing editing editing, planning planning planning, interspersed with appointments and arguments with the insurance company and other such aggravating chores. I've got three classes on the horizon: an all-day zoom session on Saturday--a reunion of participants in the 2023 Conference on Poetry and Teaching, which I'll be team-teaching with Teresa. And then on Tuesday, a full day as a visiting poet at Penquis High School, up north in Milo; and Wednesday, my usual Monson Arts cohort. None of these classes is anything at all like the others, so my thoughts have been flying from "generative writing fun for friendly adults" to "beginning activities for resistant general-level freshmen" to "all-day revision experiments with familiar eager young writers." I'm feeling a little dizzy.

Anyway, the planning is now mostly done, so today will reduce down to exercise session, followed by editing editing editing, followed by hair cut and grocery shopping and an early dinner, and then T and I will go out to the movies to watch an old Busby Berkeley musical at the local film archive.

It hasn't been a great week--weird family stuff, weird medical stuff--but my state of mind isn't terrible, so that's something. The beauty of the snow has been uplifting. The sweetness of my partner as well. I'm reading, I'm writing, I'm cooking, I'm walking. And the chickadees are singing their spring song.