I think we may have gotten a speck of rain last night . . . which is a speck more than we've had for a month. I hope this presages a change in the skies, but I am not holding my breath.

It's been warm in the little northern city by the sea, warm and very dry. The grass is brown and crisp underfoot, yet in the woods the maitakes bloom. I hunted out three big specimens yesterday, each as fat as a cabbage--a thrilling find but one that hijacked my plan for the day as I needed hours to clean and process them. Still, with four more quarts of the choicest sort of mushroom in my freezer, I will never complain. And I did manage to get the housework done, which gives me today, or at least the morning, to myself.

I'm working out thoughts for a poem project and am eager to get started on a trial run. Today will be the day, I hope. My house is clean, my editing stack has vanished, I will resist the urge to mushroom-hunt. I do need to go out this afternoon and help prep the space for tomorrow's class, but the ante meridian belongs to me and I am itching to write.

Meanwhile, the first copies of Calendar glow on my desk. It's exciting, my little burst of poetic fireworks, a sparkle that maybe only I see, but why not be happy for myself? Why not sing a little song under my breath and skip out to the clotheslines and make chocolate pudding for dessert?

The house smells of soap and fresh coffee. I am happy to be awake, happy to be excited about the day, just a simple plain day, just a day, a stack of minutes, ticking sturdily into the mists of the future.

Something is about to happen.