I sit here recovering from an upsetting dream in which Nazis were pursuing me through a huge barn, though in the midst of it I was mostly terrified for Tom, not for myself.  The miasma of nightmares clings  even as their details fade; I wonder how they can have such power, even in blur. And I wonder what lesson about fear I'm supposed to be relearning.

Well, it's good to be awake in my unfraught house, amid coffee and daylight and ordinary time. Yesterday I worked all day at my desk and in the garden--editing a memoir; then planting tomatoes, a ninebark shrub, a clematis, flats of zinnias and marigolds. Today I'll do more of the same: digging, watering, weeding, mowing; erasing, inserting, suggesting, explaining. I've got an afternoon meeting with my Poetry Lab compadres; I'll invent a chicken and fresh herb combination for dinner; I'll get some exercise--maybe a bike ride this morning instead of my boring winter mat regimen. I'll try to figure out the logistics of our weekend.

Meanwhile, my bad dream leaches into my day thoughts.

I'm still rereading Trollope's novel Framley Parsonage, the small volume that I brought along on my Chicago adventure. I'm thinking about student manuscripts . . . I'm thinking about upcoming next classes. On paper it looks like I've had vacations. In real life I've been working straight through them, as I'll be doing this weekend too. It's hard to catch up with myself, hard to remember everything I need to give.

But then I got this email from one of the poets who'll be writing a blurb for my new collection: "I. Love. Your. Book. It makes me both weepy and giggly and really awash in the sweep of how you compress so much vastness (time, history, the lineage of poetry, ideas of self) into such rugged, original poems. Gah. You’re the boss, and I miss you."

Yes, it's flagrant braggadocio to share this with you. Every Presbyterian cell in my body tells me to crawl right back under my bushel basket. And I will. But I was so pleased, and jangled, and embarrassed, and relieved to get this note. All of these messy responses to praise . . . why is it so hard to be gracious? Because of course I am longing to hear the very words that make me wince.