Light drifts in earlier and earlier every morning. A few weeks ago the sky was black velvet at 5 a.m., but now it is streaked with blue and gold, the houses and streets and flowers subdued but visible, the streetlamps already beginning to blink out.

I sit here in my couch corner with my small cup of coffee, with my head full of the poem drafts I scribbled last night. I sit here and listen to the gulls screech up from the cove, listen for the cat to come yowling to the door, demanding to be let back inside. This has been, on the whole, a quiet week, but the busyness starts again today. This afternoon I'll head north for the Monson Arts kids' gallery opening, then home tomorrow, teaching on Sunday, a flurry of desk and house and yard work next week, and then my adventure west.

Last night's writing group was a relief. I wrote three drafts to three prompts, and all have promise. It feels good to have a notebook full of material as I get ready to embark on my train voyage. The question is: what books should I bring along to read? The massive Barker bio of the Brontes, which I'm currently immersed in, would be a terrible burden to tote around the cities. I need to find a few slim paperbacks--but not too slim as I'll have many hours to fill with reading. My sons have a running joke about how to calculate the number of books I'm liable to bring along per day of travel. But my new little backpack will only hold so much . . . which is one of the reasons I bought it: to curb my book-lugging tendencies. Say it again, Dawn: I do not need to drag my library through the streets of Chicago. 

Well, for the moment I just need to focus on today's packing; on today's housework and yard work and desk work. I'll go for a walk this morning, I'll wash sheets and towels and clean the downstairs rooms, I'll do a of bit yard work if there's time, and then I'll drive north. I'll be staying with my friends in Wellington tonight; I'll sleep to the sounds of owls and peepers. It will be my last visit up north until late June, and I'm looking forward to the spring woods, to conversation, to gardens and open windows.