Yesterday was so gorgeous, so warm and sunny; and though I did work at my desk in the morning, I was out and about for a lot of the day--running errands, walking with my neighbor, hanging laundry and planting herbs, riding bikes with T, then sitting by the fire pit in the gloaming. But the day was an anomaly: for the rest of the week we're back to low 50s and periodic rain. Of course I am not complaining: my peas and onions have sprouted; the radishes, arugula, and spinach are up. Clearly the garden is loving this shifty weather, and I love it too. Warm or cold, springtime is magic.

For the past few years I've had a distinct summer editing season. I am regularly assigned to copyedit the press's prize winners for fiction, poetry, and memoir, and I look forward to it. The work is a break from my usual heavy-duty academic editing: far less time-consuming while also more closely linked to my own expertise. I can work for a couple of hours a day on a creative manuscript, and feel useful and employed, but still have unstructured time to spend on my own pursuits. So with the high school sessions over and my summer editing season underway, I am learning to live in spacious time again. I still haven't started writing poems again, but I am not beating myself up. By now I know that I always need time to adjust to a new clock.

I suppose I should consider submitting some of my finished work to journals. I currently have nothing out. Nothing. My publication ambitions seem to have vanished like the passenger pigeon.

I am ambitious to write and read, and to talk to people about writing and reading. But I don't want to judge poetry contests, and I don't want to claw my way into the pages of literary journals. I'd rather mop floors.