A cool Monday morning after rain, but the sun is forecast to return and the week is supposed to be bright and warm. Already the garden is looking pleased with itself: the rain brought out the first pea blossoms, the beans and the cucumber are beginning to climb, the garlic scapes are curling, and the backyard is a haven of green.

The first editing responses are trickling back to me from authors, so that's what I'll be working on this morning, after I do my exercises. In the afternoon I've got a faculty meeting with my teaching conference staff, and then I'll step out into the garden and re-sow the dill that never germinated and do a bit of weeding in the flowerbeds. The whole week will be like this: a tap dance between editorial cleanup and planning for various classes, with house and garden chores along the edges.

But the weekend was a good buffer, and yesterday's rain gave me the chance to bake bread, which I haven't done for ages, and go to the movies, which I also haven't done lately. And the fish chowder I made for dinner was a summer rainy-day special--warm and comforting and loaded with fresh herbs. I love kitchen-garden cooking.

I'm very much enjoying Lahiri's novel The Namesake, which is set in a time and region (1970s, 80s, and 90s Boston-Rhode Island-New York) that I knew well and focuses on Indian-American families of the sort that I knew peripherally, mostly through youth orchestra and violin lessons. But I have got to do something about getting rid of books. There's no more room on the shelves. Maybe that will be a project for the next rainy day.

Well, anyway: Monday. The week will be busy but with pockets of space. I am recovering my equilibrium. I don't have to teach or travel anywhere until the end of the month. This week I will take walks and wear summer dresses. I will fill bowls with fresh lettuce and vases with peonies. I will eat lunch outside and read a novel under the maple tree. I will breathe in the scent of line-dried shirts. Perhaps poems will come back to me.