Peppers, eggplant, and basil planted. Garden watered. Grass mowed. Tulips deadheaded. The weediest bed weeded. That's as much outdoor work as I could accomplish yesterday, but it was good enough. This morning I'm headed downeast; home tomorrow, either before I teach or afterward. I long to stay home but stasis is not in the cards.

The morning sky is gray . . . rain on the way, and the air is cool and damp. I am thinking about flowers and poems. I am thinking about spring-cleaning my kitchen. I am thinking about how to be a friend, about how to wander lonely as a cloud.

Yesterday, during our monthly confab, Jeannie and Teresa and I ambled into conversation about transitional moments. They are both turning 70 this year, I am turning 60, and all of us are hyperaware of walking through time's door. We talked about archives; we talked about ambition; we talked about stamina. All of these concerns niggle at me. What does it mean to be an artist in the late stages of her vocation? When do I allow myself to step back from obligation, or step into a new one?

And yet I am so powerfully full of life.