Greetings from Monson. This will be my third class with the kids but my first overnight here this season. As in Portland, the weather is unseasonably warm: at 6:15 a.m. I was walking around outside in a light sweater. Nonetheless, it looks like late autumn up here: leaf color fading to leather and dark gold, leaf litter thickening fast, and the first bare branches reaching toward snow.

Yesterday afternoon I puttered among the thickets along the lake, searching for a few objects to bring into class--chips of slate, scrolls of birchbark, lichen. I like to decorate the tables with something visual, something tactile, so that if anyone is struggling for words I can ask, "What's that rock feel like in your hand?" or "How would you describe the color of that birchbark?" And then, like magic, their sensory present tense slips into whatever they're writing.

Pale blue darkness stretches across the sky, outlines the fringe of trees lining the lake. It's time to go fetch some coffee and yogurt, time to settle into the pattern of my day. Dear woods, dear water, dear log trucks rumbling south: write me a letter: write me a song.