What an ice storm! The city was a glittering ice rink, and every tree looked like a crystal chandelier. But there were power lines down all over the place, trees in the road, traffic lights out . . . a mess.

We're lucky to have our little wood stove. It doesn't heat the whole house, but it keeps the living room cozy. And yesterday I learned that, in a pinch, I could do some basic cooking on it: heat water, make frying-pan toast. The other thing I learned is that our freezer is very well insulated. Even after close to twelve hours without power, the sorbet held its texture perfectly, and the frozen meat stayed rock-hard.

Long power outages were a fact of life in Harmony, but this was our longest outage in Portland, and I had no idea how our infrastructure would hold up. In Harmony, we had no water but we had ample heat and a gas range we could light with a match. Here the water still runs when the power's out, but we have limited heat and no cookstove. Hurdles to clamber over, either way.

Fortunately, this time we didn't have to do too much clambering. Early in the morning, Tom managed to dig out his truck, and we skated across town to a diner for coffee and a hot breakfast. By the time we got home, our electricity was back on, and the house was back to normal. But lots of people in the city are still out.

***

This is an on-the-road week for me. Tomorrow I'll head north, to teach on Wednesday; and on Friday I'll need to help staff the Monson Arts table at the annual Maine English teachers' convention. (Fortunately for me it's in Portland.) In between I'll start a new big editing project and work on conference planning. I'm also hoping I can get back to my walking schedule. My injured ankle has been a drag; and though it's definitely mending, I'm not sure if it's ready for three-mile hike, especially given the ice. I hate not walking, though. Walks are such a good way to figure things out: to talk to myself, mull over poems or problems, but also to get outside of my own head into the world of birds and road grit and fire engines and dogs and middle schoolers loudly confabbing as they scuttle off to school.