For the first time in years my sister and brother-in-law have managed to make it to Portland to spend a weekend with us. Previous planned visits have been derailed by so many things--illness, issues with our parents, weather--and this one very nearly went off the rails too. But finally success! and last night the four of us sat around the fire cooking, drinking wine, chattering, and I was just so happy to have this circle in my little summer green space.

This morning the rain has already moved in, and I doubt we'll get much opportunity to hike. We've talked about going bowling or going to the movies, and my sister brought two quarts of sour cherries from her backyard tree, so I think she and I will make a pie this morning. I bet we'll play cards or a board game at some point, and we've got dinner reservations at a sushi place downtown. And the chatter will go on and on . . . talking is what my sister and I do best together.

For the moment, though, everything is quiet. T is still abed upstairs, H and K are still asleep in the back room, the cat has already bounced outside and back and returned himself to slumber, and I am tucked into my couch corner as the rain-lit day yawns and stretches.

This time next week I will be readying myself for travel: gathering my bags and boxes, fretting about picking up Teresa at the airport, trying to put together a quick sociable lunch before we head north, then stepping straight into the intensity of poets and need. So even though I've got houseguests this weekend, I'm trying to think of it as a version of rest, and it is: no weeding and mowing, no scribbling or panicking; just, hmm, where's a good place to look at the ocean in the rain?

And I love these long moments of house quiet . . . knowing that rooms are filled with sleepers, sighs rising and falling around me, and my private self glowing inside its frail lonesome crystal.