Yesterday's ferry hop out to the islands was perfect--beautiful soft weather, no crowds, and we timed our trip for low tide so we could walk across the sandbar from Little Diamond to Great Diamond. We ate a picnic lunch in the shade, we picked our way over a beach where the only other visitors were three women reading books, we wandered gravel roads and paths, and we got home in time for an afternoon nap.

It's sad that the work week returns so quickly, but thus is time and here we are again. Little Chuck, who had a spurt of badness yesterday evening (pushing silverware off the dining room table, sneaking onto the counter in pursuit of cheese), is curled up on my shoulder in the guise of a good little boy. But such laziness cannot continue. I need to grocery-shop today, and send in my passport renewal, and deal with a pile of laundry. I ought to start thinking about high school class plans. I have two poem drafts smoldering and a box of stuff to cart to the Goodwill.

Yesterday I finished reading Toibin's The South, and for the moment I'm passing the time with Stevenson's Kidnapped till I step back into serious concentration.

Today is the first day of school in Portland, and my walk will be crowded with parents and children. A few leaves are changing color; a few are beginning to fall. My Poetry Kitchen class is full (actually too full, amazingly). I've got so much work looming. But for the moment I will idle, watching the families hurry by, watching the songbirds strip the last of the berries from the bushes. I feel invisible. It is not so bad.