Yesterday was a quiet, quiet day. No phone calls, no chatter . . . just desk, clothesline, wood boxes, and my own walking feet. As a result, I finished editing two chapters, worked on a poem draft, read a chunk of Alice Munro's The View from Castle Rock, simmered a pot of minestrone, walked a few miles through the chill sea air, even briefly lay down on the couch and slept. This week is in no way a vacation, but it is a rest, in its own style.

Today I've got to add in some class planning and my core-exercise regimen, but otherwise the hours will follow their same plain path. Tom and I might go out to the movies tonight, to see an old Marlene Dietrich flick, if his cold behaves itself. If not, we'll hole up by the wood stove.

A steady home routine is its own restorative--the small round of obligations, the necessary duties: lugging firewood, cleaning out ashes, washing dishes, pinning towels to the line, trudging down a road, reading a book, writing down words. I speak for myself, of course. You may despise all of this, or be overwhelmed by it. I don't know why I'm made this way.

And yet my mind is sharpened and opened by the routine work of my hands, my shoulders, my legs. My heart-stare deepens.