Well, I got the crabgrass dug out of the front sidewalk--a hot and boring job made better by the fence-building guys working across the street, who were blasting Johnny Cash all afternoon. And then, at the art opening in the evening, I was accosted by an unknown woman. For a moment I thought I must have met her in a class or something and was wracking my brains, until she demanded: "Who does your hair?" I stammered out the name of the woman who cuts it, but what I really wanted to admit is "First, I jam a garden hat on it. Then I sweat a lot."

The opening was crowded and fun, and then the poets all trudged over to Elise Gabberd's reading at a downtown bookstore. Elise writes the "On Poetry" column for the New York Times and has published essays in the big magazines, but she also happens to be a friend of one of our poets, so the two had a staged conversation together about Elise's new essay collection. That was fun too, and in a conversation afterward it turned out that Elise had read my book about rereading, The Vagabond's Bookshelf, which was a shock. Also I was able to have a conversation with her about Updike's Rabbit novels, which hardly anyone I know has read/loved to the degree that I do. So all of that was exciting, and now I will read Elise's book on the bus to New York and maybe we can keep talking about novels and rereading when I'm done. I'm always hopeful. And sometimes those hopes work out: thanks to Ivy Compton-Burnett's novels, I met the excellent novelist Tom Rayfiel, who is practically the only other writer I know who reads in any way approaching the way I do--constantly, obsessively, randomly, repeatedly, giddily. [Too many adverbs. Sorry.]

Today I've got to get myself ready to leave home--do laundry, run errands, pack, water the garden, etc. Ahead I've got a zoom fest in the afternoon with my Poetry Lab pals, and then an evening with Tom, and then tomorrow morning I'll be writing to you from the bus, on my way to the metropolis. I am ready for an outing. The editing project is done, the proofreading is done, the crabgrass chore is done, and I will embark with a new book to read and no work responsibilities for four whole days. Baseball! Art museums! Beer! Chatter! Restaurants! Young people! Old friends! Wandering around aimlessly! I can't wait.

It is so dark at 5 a.m. these days.

Outside, a freight train squeals and rumbles past. The air through the open windows is cool, and a warm coffee cup comforts my hands. No birds sing yet, but somewhere in the garden a cricket chirps.

Yesterday I finished the big editing project and then proofread about half of Calendar. This morning I'll finish proofing, meet a friend for a walk, and turn my attention to yard work--grass mowing for sure, and maybe I'll also find the wherewithal to begin digging up the weedy front walkway.

Meanwhile, end-of-summer sociables are rife. Tonight I'm going to an art opening and then to a reading, partly with T, partly with poets. Then tomorrow afternoon I'll have my monthly zoom-confab with my far-flung poet collective: Teresa, Jeannie, and Maudelle. And on Saturday morning I'll embark for New York.

I look back at this summer, and it's a blur of busyness . . . family visits, garden hysteria, the anxiety and catharsis of the teaching conference, getting a book ready for press: all overshadow the plodding details of routine. And now September looms.

I don't know if I'm looking forward to a new routine or dreading it. I've never been at ease with transitions.  But I am excited about going to New York--to packing the shiny brand-new suitcase I had to buy after the wheels fell apart on the old one I brought to Chicago last spring . . . to wandering around the august halls of the Met with my large son . . . to staying up way too late with my oldest friend . . . to perching in the stands at Citi Field and watching my Red Sox boys bumble and shine.

 

I went for an early morning walk yesterday, hoping to spy the first maitakes springing up around the roots of the oak trees in Baxter Woods. Instead, I discovered a last-hurrah of chanterelles--a quart or so of tiny, just-sprouted gold, glimmering in the wet fog.

Here is the risotto, underway--with homegrown garlic, and a homegrown jalapeño, and freshly made garlic broth, and with a dish of chopped homegrown parsley and fennel greens waiting in the wings.

And here is Ruckus in a too-small box, fervently underfoot. Because what is cooking without a cat to trip over?

***

I got a lot done yesterday--the bulk of the housework and the bulk of the editing project; and I'll finish both of them today, which means I can finally turn my attention to page proofs. And here she is, the new collection, looking just like the real thing.

If life were easy and small presses had their own copyediting staff, I wouldn't have to proofread my own collection. But as it is, I do, and at least I know how, though the task always makes me nervous. Writers are the worst at seeing their own typos. I'm sure I'll find something horrifying, and miss something horrifying, but c'est la vie.

I let the cat out this morning into deep fog--streetlights like blurred candles, invisible crickets pulsing in the garden, the brown dark draped in dense wet cloud.

I slept hard last night, and the night was full of dreams, and morning arrived so quickly. I keep checking the clock to see if I've made a mistake about getting up, if it's really 3 a.m. But no.

Yesterday was busy--mostly desk work, and then my Calendar proof arrived, and then I rushed out to the grocery store and rushed back thinking I could get the house cleaned too. But the phone kept ringing, and I ran out of time. So the housework will wait until today.

Still, I got stuff done yesterday. I'm now nearly finished with the editing project, which means I should also have time to correct the Calendar proof before I leave for NYC--two tasks that I wasn't sure I could accomplish this week.

Outside the Carolina wren interrupts the crickets--tea kettle, tea kettle, tea kettle. Against the fog, the big maples are intricate silhouettes, and the air smells like the sea.

This morning I'll go out for a walk, hoping to find mushrooms after last night's rain. This morning I'll clean house, deal with the sheets and towels, put things to rights. This morning I'll stand at my desk and finish editing a chapter, maybe even finish editing the entire book.

All weekend my mind was jangled, but I'm back on keel now. A course has been charted. The sea spray rises around me.

It's been a quiet, also an odd, weekend . . . one spent making tomato sauce, harvesting dill for drying, beginning to figure out how to to deal with a giant crop of hot peppers, mowing grass, pinning laundry to the line, but also dealing with an angsty job-related issue that is ripping open a few scabbed-over emotions. And now here we are again at Monday, and I must turn my attention to the workaday world--which means scrambling to hammer out the rest of my big editing project before I embark for NYC on Saturday.

And the school year is upon us too. I don't start up with my high schoolers until later in September, but before then I'll be co-teaching a free workshop for teachers and teaching artists. So if you're in the Portland area on Saturday, September 21, you might want to check it out. Free, free, free, and all-day fun, featuring the great Gretchen Berg, a magnificent teacher of physical theater who is also a fine poet.

I've been rereading Louisa May Alcott and, more recently, Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres. Today I'll get my bound uncorrected copy of Calendar, so checking proofs is another job I'll need to add to my list for the week. Reading, writing, teaching, editing. Straightening my spine, getting on with it. 

 from An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott (1870)

"Some time ago we got into a famous talk about what women should be, and Becky [the sculptor] said she'd show us her idea of the coming woman. There she is, as you say, bigger, lovelier, and more imposing than any we see nowadays; and at the same time she is a true woman. See what a fine forehead, yet the mouth is both firm and tender, as if it could say strong, wise things, as well as teach children and kiss babies. We couldn't decide what to put in the hands as the most appropriate symbol. What do you say?"

"Give her a scepter: she would make a fine queen," answered Fanny.

"No, we have had enough of that; women have been called queens a long time, but the kingdom given them isn't worth ruling," answered Rebecca. . . .

"Put a man's hand in hers to help her along, then," said Polly, whose happy fortune it had been to find friends and helpers in fathers and brothers.

"No; my woman is to stand alone, and help herself," said Rebecca, decidedly.

"She's to be strong-minded, is she?" and Fanny's lip curled a little as she uttered the misused words.

"Yes, strong-minded, strong-hearted, strong-souled, and strong-bodied; that is why I made her larger than the miserable, pinched-up woman of our day. Strength and beauty must go together. Don't you think these broad shoulders can bear burdens without breaking down, these hands work well, these eyes see clearly, and these lips do something besides simper and gossip?"

"Put a child in her arms, Becky."

"Not that even, for she is to be something more than a nurse."

"Give her a ballot-box," cried a new voice. . . .

"Thank you for the suggestion, Kate. I'll put that with the other symbols at her feet; for I'm going to have needle, pen, palette, and broom somewhere, to suggest the various talents she owns, and the ballot-box will show that she has earned the right to use them."

* * *

A feminist manifesto for little girls, published five years after the end of the Civil War! Alcott's books were bestsellers--hundreds of thousands of little girls (and their mothers, and their brothers, and maybe now and again their fathers) read this passage. Yes, it's a little bossy and didactic, but then again here we are in 2024 with talk of menstrual police. 

"I'm going to have needle, pen, palette, and broom somewhere, to suggest the various talents she owns, and the ballot-box will show that she has earned the right to use them." Imagine the impact of this statement. A ballot box symbolizes a woman's right to choose to do her work.

Kamala Harris for president. It's about damn time.

The air is cool, the windows are open, the neighborhood is quiet except for the mutter of flight--a passing plane, a gull. I've got stuff to do today--grass mowing, errand running, meeting a friend for lunch--but there's no rush, no rush.

Nonetheless, I'm feel unsettled, worked up . . . I got a phone call with a job offer yesterday that threw me for a loop--not a call I expected to get: not a bad call, it could even be seen as cathartic, but it brought up some old business that I thought was behind me, and now I feel like I've swallowed a thistle, or have just discovered I'm sitting in a patch of burs.

Friends who are smarter than me are useful in such situations. I spent a few hours hashing it out with Teresa, with Tom, and while I'm still perplexed, I'm starting to untangle a few threads. But the knot is tight.

Anyway, here's a day ahead of us! Here's a day! Tom is already out somewhere, taking pictures in first light. The cat just stalked in after an early-morning prowl. I'm drinking my second cup of coffee and watching a rim of blue sky peep from behind the clouds. And none of this is going to help me pry that knot.

It's Friday, the last day in a busy week, but it will be quieter than the others have been. Yesterday the kids left in the morning, and then I dealt with sheets and towels and tidying up, rushed to do some editing, rushed out for a meeting at the museum, rushed back to do some more editing, then rushed out to my writing group. Today there will be less rushing--just a long walk, and then a day at my desk.

I was saying to friends last night that this summer has been my first experience of not crying when I part from my children. I'm sorrowful to see them go, of course, but I haven't spilled tears. I think this must be another transition: a body-understanding that my sons are adults, with satisfying lives and steady partners. And that I also am an adult, with a satisfying life and a steady partner. We no longer meet as caregiver and protected children. We are peers.

Still, it's poignant--to see them come, to see them go. To love two young men so much--and to feel their steady, dense love for me.

A cloud of love. It lingers, even when they do not.

A swoony happy evening with my young people--oysters out, and then tuna steaks at home, and so much chatter and ease and affection. . . how glad I am for every minute with them.

They will drive away toward their vacation in an hour or two, and my day will wander back into its usual lines, but thank goodness for even brief embraces. The young people are such treasures.

It's chilly in Portland this morning--the first time in months I've worn my fleecy bathrobe. Autumn is creeping forward, though summer still allows us to eat oysters outside in the gloaming, though the garden pours forth its glories.

I had a bizarre dream about having to copyedit Ted Nugent's memoir while he was standing next to me. I suppose the dream signifies political anxiety, but also the scenario was just plain funny, especially when I remember how mad he got when I pointed out the typo in his name on the cover: Tet Nugent. And how even madder he got when I told him I was quitting. So maybe it wasn't anxiety I was dreaming. Maybe it was my own power.

I haven't been watching the DNC in real time, but the clips I've seen are making me happy. Some very smart people designed and are running this thing: the musical roll call and the double-stadium trolling and the eviscerating speeches and of course the palpable delight. People are doing their job, and doing it well.

What is this feeling of being uplifted by public hope? Jeez, it's been a long time.

This afternoon my older son and his partner are escaping from gaudy Chicago for a quick overnight visit, and I need to decide what we're doing for dinner. We'd had hopes of a picnic and a jazz show on the Western Prom tonight, but the sky keeps leaking rain, so I'm doubtful. But we'll definitely go out for oysters, and then we'll have some sort of seafood for dinner, either at home or out of a basket. I'll figure it out. I'll enjoy figuring it out.

This has been a breathless week--a meeting yesterday morning about what looks to be a fair amount work around designing the student-teacher arm of this big poet laureate project, then rushing off to a brunch, then rushing back to hammer out editing hours . . . A different planning meeting tomorrow, involving a trip to the Portland Museum, then rushing back to hammer out editing hours . . . Today's busyness around my son's visit will be a vacation, comparatively. Nothing more complex than groceries, dinner, and clean sheets.

Well, I'm full of fizz--maybe thanks to a good night's sleep, or to the Democrats; maybe because I love the conversations that happen around embryonic projects, or because I'm going to share a few hours with my young people.

I don't know if any of you remember the Detroit band the MC5. They were loud and raw and often very silly, but "Rambling Rose" is a 1969 anthem, and the live recorded version that opens the album Kick Out the Jams is one of the era's great performances. It opens with a hype sermon by the band's warm-up man, a guy who went by the name of Brother J. C. Crawford, which then leads straight into a grinding blues riff . . . I'm running out of research time right now, but if you can find a clip on YouTube, maybe you'll see what I'm getting at--the sheer delight of using biblical rhythms and a dirt-floor guitar riff to stick it to the Man.

If there was ever a Man who deserves to get pitchforked, it's Donald Trump. I wish Brother J. C. Crawford and the MC5 were here to do it.

A big thunderstorm rolled through last night, and this morning the air is wet and cool, almost chilly. I slept badly last night--I don't know why: maybe the storm jolted me awake, maybe my too-busy thoughts. Unfortunately I've got a full day ahead, and I'd rather be starting it with a good night's sleep.

This morning, first thing, I'm meeting with my friend Julia about her big epistolary-poem project, which just got a massive amount of funding from the Academy of American Poets. There will be a lot of work for me in this--coordinating the young-writers arm, running some workshops--and our meeting this morning will start figuring that out. And then I need to dash out to a brunch party for a visiting poet, and then I need to dash back and get some editing done and finish cleaning the house in preparation for my son's arrival tomorrow. The day will be filled with opportunities to be ditzy and scattershot.

The summer is flying away. Suddenly everything is so urgent and rushed. It's exciting but it's also overwhelming, though maybe that's just my sleepless night talking. I'm worked up about seeing so much of my boys. I'm worked up by all of this poetry teaching that's falling into my lap. I'm worked up about having another poetry collection in the world. I'm worked up about being overbooked, even though last spring I swore I'd figure out how to keep that from happening again this year. Fat chance, apparently. 

Yesterday was the seventh anniversary of closing on this house, a date I always remember because August 18  also happens to be my parents' 62nd wedding anniversary and, oddly, the 10th anniversary of buying my car. Still, I feel surprised. Seven years with the house, nearly eight away from Harmony: it's hard to fathom. I still often feel like a newcomer to Portland. I still often feel homesick for the north. But on the whole, when I think of home now, I think of here.

Outside, in the half-darkness, a Carolina wren insists tea kettle, tea kettle, tea kettle, sparring with a cardinal's cheer, cheer, cheer, cheer. The air that drifts through the open windows is thick and damp. Downstairs, the washing machine churns tablecloth. napkins, and kitchen linens from last night's dinner party. It is Monday. There is work to be done. The little northern city by the sea is preparing for rain. I live here.

My schedule is full this week, but today will be relatively quiet. I'll spend time on my mat; I'll edit, maybe get a head start on housework. The little house is shabby and peaceful, in its bower of garden. The books on the shelves nod their heads.

Seven years in this place. In fairy tales, that means something is about to change.

A thin rain is trailing away into dampness. Tom just headed out to take early-morning photos, and I am sitting here with my coffee considering how to organize my dinner-party preparations. First, I think, I'll set the focaccia to rise, and then I'll make the lemon custards and a tiny batch of blueberry jam to top them. Afterward, I'll marinate the flank steak, and the rest of the meal--roasted potatoes, tomato and green bean salad--can wait till later in the day.

But there's no rush for any of this. Yesterday I got the mowing and trimming done early, ran errands, planted fall crops (spinach, lettuce), dealt with some online stuff, bought bus tickets for my NYC trip, and even managed to type up a couple of notebook blurts and begin some revisions. I've been intensely engaged with Byatt's novels, and my spare minutes have been stuffed with greedy rereading. So, overall, it was a good Saturday--productive but also unstructured, and with plenty of time to get drunk on books.

The coming week will be busy. Lots of editing, page proofs to read, various meetings about upcoming teaching projects, my older boy and his partner swirling in for an overnight, plus all of the regular household demands. August is trickling away so quickly. 

By the way: there are only four spaces left in my November revision class, and the October class is entirely full. So if you're interested in working with me through the Poetry Kitchen this fall, you might want to sign up for a November space as I may not be able to offer another PK class till spring. Teresa and I will be leading an alumni session in January for the 2024 Conference on Poetry and Learning folks, and we are starting to cogitate about a multi-session poetic-research class for a spring PK offering. But I'm going to be involved, in some large way, with the Maine poet laureate's big statewide epistolary poetry project, so that is going to suck up a fair amount of time.

In person: Gretchen Berg and I will be team-teaching "Moving Bodies, Moving Words" on September 23 in Portland. That workshop will be free, and I'll have a link for you soon.

My book launch for Calendar will take place on October 17 at Back Cove Books in Portland. I'll also be reading at Carrabassett Valley Public Library with Maine's poet laureate, Julia Bouwsma, on November 16. I'm hoping to arrange a Zoom-based launch as well as other in-person readings and will keep you posted. 

If you have any interest in reviewing Calendar, let me know and I can send you a PDF of the page proofs this week. It would mean so much to me. It's really, really, really hard to get anyone to pay attention to a book without reviews. Obscurity has its charms, for sure. But it would be nice to have a taste of the other side, just once.

A Saturday at home! I am so glad to be going nowhere. Tom was up and out of the house at 5, off to take pictures at first light, but I lazed in bed a bit longer, then rolled downstairs to make coffee, and now here I am, doing nothing other than listening to the crickets and the birds and to Ruckus and his best friend Jack, who are slinking across the front yard and quietly yowling at each other. (Recently, the cats have taken to having these long companionable yowly conversations while they pace around together. It's very silly.)

I've got yard and garden work to get done today, and a few errands to run, but I'm not feeling pressed. There's time to laze around for a while, and I plan to. Tomorrow night we've got friends coming for dinner, but today is spacious. Yard things, kitchen things, desk things . . . baseball on the radio . . . a book in the hammock . . . summer-sweetness, and a slow amble through the hours.

Autumn looms, with all of its obligations. The days wane, a chill will set it, and I will light the wood stove again and be happy in a different way. I will have a strong roof and trimmed maples and new brakes and a pile of firewood and lots of work to do and someone to cuddle with under a blanket, but still there will be elegy: for open windows and crickets, for the overflowing garden, for color, for skin kissing air.

 I'm beginning to feel somewhat less crazy-eyed. Thanks to yesterday's rain, I couldn't do any outside work, so I spent time on my mat, then edited a chapter and starting looking at page proofs and answering emails and generally catching myself up on desk things. I don't know what today's weather is supposed to be. Maybe I can get into the garden, but I also have a meeting this morning, and then a friend from the northcountry is stopping by, and then I need to go to the grocery store, so who knows.

At least it's Friday, and at the salon last night I wrote one decent draft, and now outside a mockingbird is preening and trilling and I am sitting in a clean and tidy room and nothing presently is going wrong. Still, I have leftover jangle--from car worries etc.; from the sudden influx of work work work schedule schedule schedule that has invaded my email; from the chain of end-of-summer responsibilities: firewoodcompostpilefurnacecleaningharvesthurryupgeteverythingdonegeteverythingdone . . . What I ought to do is take the day off from editing and just let myself write and read and putter in the garden. Whether I do  that or not remains to be seen.

Yesterday was wildly busy, but I pushed a lot of things, if not off my plate, at least into manageable piles. First thing, I took a long walk, then I bashed out the housework and the laundry, and then I hauled a pile of coats etc. to the dry cleaner and brought the car to the bodyshop to get an estimate for the rust repair. That turned out to be more affordable than I'd feared--$800 instead of thousands. The shop can't get it done till the end of September, and they'll need to keep the car for three days, which will be a pain, but at least the work is scheduled and I didn't collapse into tears when I heard the estimate.

Today I've got to edit, and I've got to start reading the Calendar proof. I hope to go out to write tonight, though I doubt I'll have a chance to do much poem revision in the next few days. The yard is a mess (well, not truly a mess, but messy for me), and the garden is demanding, and we're hosting a dinner party on Sunday, and next Wednesday my older son and his partner will sweep in for an overnight, and the following week I'm going to New York . . . It is a breathless time of year.

In the meantime, offers for teaching gigs and readings are popping up in my inbox; my fall calendar is starting to vibrate; everything feels too much, too soon, but it's all just life. I've been lucky to have had a small nest of quiet for the past six weeks, and I'm lucky to have good things to do this fall. But I always struggle with transitions.

By October I'll have a nice solid car to drive into the hinterlands: good brakes, rust under control, no other looming issues (as far as I can tell). I'll have steady work (and pay). I've got a book launch scheduled; the roof has been repaired; the big trees have been trimmed and braced; the firewood will be delivered. If Kamala Harris can be 60 years old and be flying around the country to reassure massive crowds of hopeful Americans, I can be 60 years old and be smiling my way into my scrappy poet life. 

I apologize for the series of terse posts, but terse was how was I feeling. However, now that I am the owner of a set of satiny-smooth rear discs and rotors, now that I'm not wincing through the Vermont hills feeling like I'm braking in a box of rocks, now that I have sailed smoothly and without incident over the Green Mountains and down the interstate highways, I believe my volubility will return.

Except for the brakes, the visit was mostly fun. My parents were in a reasonably good state of mind, my son and his partner were delightful, my nephews were a hoot, and my sister and brother-in-law were cheery and welcoming. The weather was decent, the neighboring cows were attractive, the game-playing was rampant. If only I hadn't been driving a machine of doom, it would have been a good weekend.

And now here I am, back in Portland, with a thousand chores yammering at me. Today will have to be laundry and housework and a visit to the body shop to get a rust estimate plus whatever garden and yard catch-up I can squeeze in. Maybe I'll have a chance to do some editing as well, but likely it will have to wait. I did fit in an afternoon of work in Vermont, when the car was in the shop and the kids were off on a big cousin outing, so I'm not too far behind.

In my email are the first page proofs for Calendar, the offer of a teaching gig and a reading, some registration notices for Poetry Kitchen classes . . . I need to meet with Gretchen to plan our next SideXSide session . . . I need to buy bus tickets to New York . . . I'm hosting a dinner party this weekend . . . 

Responsibility is weighing me down, but at least my brakes work really well now. 

I'm still in Vermont, but there is good news: I managed to get the car into the shop, and late yesterday afternoon the mechanics replaced the rear brakes and rotors. So it should be available for pickup this morning. And then, after I tote my kids to the train station, I'll head home.

The whole brake situation has been unfortunate, but at least I've had a place to stay, family to hang out with, and really nice garage guys. Yesterday I did manage to get in a few hours of work as well, when the pack of five kids all went out for the afternoon together. So I'm not feeling entirely behindhand.

Now I get to go home and deal with Car Troubles Part 2: Rust Edition. 

I'm hoping to get my car into a shop this morning. With luck, that will happen, and the problem will be solved quickly, and I'll be on the road later today. But who knows.

Anyway, it's been fun to be around our passel of young people, who always brighten the air. And the weather has been lovely.

Well, I made it to Vermont, but now my brakes are acting up, so that's not great. However, my young people have also arrived, which is cheering.

Broken sleep last night, and a social day ahead, but the weather is calm and bright . . . Cows to watch in the field, maybe an outing to the lake this afternoon.

However, I look forward to a world without car angst.

It's raining this morning, but I think we're at the tail end of the storm, so I'm still planning to head toward Burlington in an hour or so. For multiple reasons, this drive to Vermont is always hard on me. But I'll be seeing Kerrin for lunch, and my young people are coming in this evening. So with luck, these little social swirls will temper my nerves.

I'm off to pack now.

Well, here I am, not driving to Vermont, at least not yet. I've postponed until tomorrow and will reassess the situation then. In conversations with my sister she told me flatly not to drive over the Green Mountains in the rain because the roads are in such dicey condition after the past couple of weeks. So that made me feel somewhat less babyish about the prospect of traveling in a giant rainstorm.

Yesterday was filled with distraction and annoyances . . . chimney guys on the roof all day, hammering and grinding brick, etc., which is not conducive to desk work in any way. And then my ten-year-old car didn't pass inspection on account of rust--not wholly a surprise but irritating anyway. The mechanic assures me that it's not dangerous to drive, so I don't need to scrap the Vermont trip. But I'm still going to have to pay a lot of money to a body shop, and we're already paying a lot of money to the chimney guys, and we just paid a lot of money to an arborist, and there are more big bills ahead, and I don't know when we'll ever feel financially stable. It's just never going to happen, I guess.

But enough of that kind of gloom. The rain sounds lovely on the windows, and I will make soupe au pistou for dinner tonight--a summery French soup filled with kitchen-garden vegetables and herbs. There will be blueberry buckle for dessert, featuring the last big picking of berries from my bush. I'll work at my desk with no chimney guys clomping overhead, and I might transcribe a poem blurt or two out of my notebook, and who knows?--I may even take a rainy-day nap. Tomorrow either I'll drive to Vermont or I won't, but the weather will not be my fault, and I won't feel guilty if I don't get there, and life will go on without me.

I'm supposed to drive to Vermont tomorrow, but suddenly that trip is on the rocks, what with the tropical storm hurtling up the East Coast. My friend Teresa, who lives in Florida, tells me it was the worst storm she's lived through there, mostly because it seemed to be endless. So I am already dreading the thought of driving in torrential rain over those Vermont mountains, which are so prone to washouts.

On the other hand, I am supposed to meet my friend Kerrin for lunch, and I am supposed to see my kid and his partner, so I am reluctant to pull the plug on this trip . . . On the third hand, I am an anxious driver with bad eyes . . . 

Ah, well. There are no weather updates yet, so all I can do is wait a bit longer to make a decision. But blah.

In the meantime, today will be a workman day at the Alcott House: the chimney sweep is coming to repair the chimney, fix the flashing, clean and patch the roof rubber, plus sweep the flues--an all-day job that's going to cost a lot. We've already put money into tree work this summer, and now the roof work will be another big lump sum--but climate change isn't giving us much choice. The bad storms are not going to let up.

So I will peg away at my editing project, and fret about my trip, and maybe or maybe not go out to write tonight, and take my car to the garage to get inspected, and read Babel Tower, and take a walk to clear my head. I will pick blueberries and make a blueberry buckle from them, and I will eat leftover chanterelle risotto, and I will try to make all of the right decisions, and I will probably not.

I am excited about the Democratic ticket, excited in a way that, a few weeks ago, I did not think could be possible. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are smart and interesting and funny and personable. Like me, they are 1964 babies, and thus they understand the power of snark and irony, as my generation does so well, but they also understand joy . . . and this is such a massive, massive relief.

I've been thinking that age 60 may be the perfect time to run a good presidential campaign. We've got life experience, but we've also got energy. And we've got a vivid relationship with the generations on either side of us. Many of us still have living parents; many of us are the parents of young-adult children. This creates the possibility of a broad network of knowledge and care and trust. It's an interesting moment, even if we're not running for president.

I'm not going to burden you with a politicking post: I'm pretty sure that all of my eight or so readers will be voting the same way I do in November, so you don't need any advice from me. But all of us have endured some gruesome times together, and the cloud of gloom has been hard to break through--sometimes impossible to break through. Reports of last night's raucous, happy Harris-Walz rally in Philadelphia dispelled some of my gloom, and that's no small thing in this era of dread.

Another drizzly dawn after a night of downpour. Still, most of yesterday was sunny enough for me to dry sheets on the line, though I didn't have time to do much else outside, other than take a morning walk and pick vegetables for dinner. The new editing project swallowed my morning, housework swallowed the afternoon, and by late in the day I was at the stove hovering over the first sauce of the season. The tomatoes are coming in early and fast, and there is nothing lovelier in a pan than a clutch of Romas, a few bright peppers, a sliver of onion, and a pat of butter.

This morning I'll be back on my mat and back at my desk. With the weekly house chores behind me, maybe I'll have a chance to mow grass or move compost in the afternoon, if things ever dry out around here. 

I've been reading Babel Tower steadily, and I've been thinking hard about my friend's poetry manuscript, but I haven't written much myself for the past few days. That's fine--I've certainly met my quota of poems for the summer: I've been productive and I've been excited about being productive. Lately I've been feeling a lot of confidence, which may or may not be justified but is at least reassuring. It's restful not to be anxious (for the moment) about my worth.

Sunday was another wet day--off-and-on drizzles and downpour, no possibility of yard work, though I did find a few dryish minutes to pick blueberries and tomatoes. Instead, I spent much of the morning at my desk, finishing up commentary on my friend's ms, and then transferred my thoughts first to grocery shopping and then to the kitchen: making vanilla ice cream, making quick green-tomato pickles with a handful of windfalls, marinating chicken with lemon and fresh sage, listening to baseball, watering houseplants. I finished rereading Our Mutual Friend and started rereading A. S. Byatt's Babel Tower. I made a fresh corn, cucumber, and tomato salad; oven-braised the chicken with minced garlic and a Serrano pepper; put half of the blueberry harvest into the freezer and sugared the other half for scattering over the ice cream. It was a puttering-around day, a slow Sunday-dinner-prep day, a day for an apron, a summer dress, and a fat novel.

And today I am back on the job. This morning I'll begin a new big editing project; in the afternoon I'll clean the house; in the interstices I'll wash sheets and towels and maybe get them onto the line if the weather give me the nod. I'll go for an early-morning walk in search of mushrooms, though on the whole it's been a terrible foraging summer. Outside a cardinal sings his Jericho, Jericho tune. Upstairs T clings half-heartedly to sleep.

We went out last night with our friend Betsy to see the Arkestra--the jazz group founded by Sun Ra in the 1950s and that has continued to perform since his death in the 90s. The venue was the big First Parish Church downtown, and the place was packed, and very hot, but the show was terrific--a mix of loopy hypnotic Afrofuturism and demented Duke Ellington, performed by a giant band, all clad in sequined capes and King Tut hats, etc., and all of them stellar musicians. The audience, a real all-ages crowd, was swooning with heat and delight: it was a great show, and afterward I stepped into the coolish night air feeling giddy and excited by the comedy and beauty and history and cadence of it all.

Still, after three outings in a row, I'm ready for a quiet Sunday. It's drizzling outside again, so I have no idea what I'll be able to do in the garden and yard today. I suppose I should undergo the grocery store, though, and I'll probably try to finish reading my friend's poetry manuscript as I've got a new editing project to start tomorrow. Next weekend I'll be in Vermont--another flurry to prepare for. But for the moment I'll try to put that out of my mind.

A beautiful hot night for baseball, a slow walk home through the velvet gloaming, a deep sleep in a cool house. Now, this morning, I have turned off the air machine and the sound of steady rain spatters the darkness. I carry up a cup of coffee to T and he murmurs hmm? . . . wordless interrogative of comfort, of cotton sheets and deep shadow and the trickle of water against windows and the low harmless grumble of distant thunder.

And now the storm moves closer, a flash of light, a clap--sudden drama, then sudden calm, rain resisting downpour, clinging to andante, though electricity thickens the air.

Once upon a time there was a summer.

We had a sudden bat uproar in the house last night. After a terrible swooping fluttering flurry, we finally shut it into our bedroom, hoping it would eventually find the wide-open window and escape, and T and the cat and I ended up downstairs on various couches for the rest of the night, all of us attempting to calm down and get some sleep, which I'm not sure I ever did. I love bats in the wild and panic about them in close quarters--for good reason, though this one, poor thing, was clearly not interested in biting us.

My slip-sliding sentences here are a reasonable reflection of my overnight state of mind. But fortunately the open window did work. The bat has now returned to its proper sphere, and we are all highly relieved, except possibly the cat, who enjoyed the chaos, even if he was annoyed by the disruption in his sleeping arrangements.

I still have not quite pulled myself together, though a cup of coffee is helping. I sure hope I can find a moment for a nap today. I went out to write last night; tonight we're going to a baseball game, tomorrow night to a jazz show, which will mean three nights in a row of getting to bed late, on top of the bat mayhem.

In the meantime, the torrid weather continues. Yesterday I spent most of the day in front of the fan with stacks of books, a notebook, a laptop. Today will likely be a repeat--early-morning blueberry picking, a walk before the heat kicks in, and then books all day long. Let's hope the bat also has a calm day.

Just like that, it's August. Month of elegy, month of rush, the school year looming, the harvest beckoning, all of the get-me-done-before-winter obligations scratching at the door.

Of course I have an easier slide into the school year than most teachers do. My high school sessions don't get underway until late September; and with no children at home, August is more seasonal memory than actual stress. Still, there's the list of winter needs to check off: firewood, chimney sweep, furnace cleaning, car inspection . . . And there's the sudden flurry of visiting: next weekend's hustle to Vermont, the Chicago kids whirling into town, then my trip to Brooklyn, everything crammed in before my teaching schedule chains me into routine.

And summer is far from over. We'll be back in the high 80s today and tomorrow, which I suppose will mean another bout with the noisy air machine. Already the day is deeply humid, 70 degrees at 5:30 a.m. I'll probably go out and pick beans first thing this morning, before the heat sets in. I've got a dish full of plums to deal with--a future cake to bring along to my writing group tonight. I want to buy tickets for tomorrow night's Sea Dogs game, maybe our last chance to see the young Red Sox phenoms before they start getting called up to the bigs. There's no better way to soak in summer sweetness than to lean back in my seat in a minor-league ballpark, sipping a beer and and staring from field to sky as the evening rolls in.

I didn't get much writing done yesterday, mostly just playing with stanza breaks, but I did read a lot. This morning I'll go out for a walk, and then I'll return to the words and see what happens.

Maybe nothing will happen other than flowers and tomatoes and bees and the two monarch butterflies that have fallen in love with my garden. Which will be good enough.