It's a cold morning out there--in the 30s, with a sharp wind. The trees still have leaves, but most are on the ground now, billowing into crackling heaps, skidding in solitary droves down the pavement, swirling against fences and foundations.

I slept badly of course, but not too badly. And I did manage to stay in bed until 6. So all in all, I'm in moderately good condition to undertake this weekend of work that lies ahead.

Yesterday I managed to reenter some version of my routine. I cleaned the house. I went to the grocery store. I baked salmon brushed with lemon and maple syrup. I cooked wild rice and put together a salad with greens and kohlrabi from the garden. I made a batch of lemon squares.

While I cooked, I listened to albums that I had listened to with Ray . . . Tammy Wynette, the Smiths, Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run . . . and I wept, as I knew I would, as I intended to do. It was the first time since his death that I was finally able to let myself go. When Tom came downstairs, he looked at me and said, "If you don't want to do that, don't listen to the Smiths," and I laughed through my tears.

There is gift and pain in being with the one person who knows. We were both there in that borrowed living room, sprawling on couches in the middle of the night, listening to Morrissey mourn and desire. In the end, we became the only people from those days who didn't split away into other partnerships. Our life together arose from those long nights of music. Our children arose from that past. My son tells me that he, too, has been crying to the soundtrack of Born to Run.

I purposefully set myself up to weep last night because I knew that, if I have to spend all weekend in a class full of hurting poets, I'd best get my own grief into the air. I'd best bring it into a place where I can use it for my work.

Because now, more than ever, that work had better get done.