In the light of subsequent events at the Capitol, yesterday's post is naive. Painful to read, even. Possibly I should erase it. On the other hand, one of the furies that beset me, as I watched the insurrection unfold, was the way in which Trump strangles joy--repeatedly, and with cruel pleasure.

So I am not going to forget my relief--the wash of optimism that enveloped me after the Georgia victory.

At the same time, we knew something terrible was coming. And by "we" I mean anyone with eyes open--not just regular Americans but most certainly members of Congress, the cabinet, his staff, his family. The man is a lunatic, a narcissist, a perpetual liar, a sadist. He has been inciting violence throughout his term in office, and has been grooming a cross-section of dregs to respond. And respond they did: stupidly, incompetently, hideously . . . a veritable reflection of their puppetmaster.

And so the Confederate flag waved in the Capitol yesterday. A man in an idiotic bull costume posed for a photo, revealing the Klan symbol tattooed on his stomach. A "protester" fell 30 feet off a scaffold. Another accidentally tased himself. A grinning fool stole a lectern. And a woman was shot in the chest and killed.

If black or brown people had dared to invade in such a way, hundreds would be dead, beaten, jailed. But the white guys get to post selfies to Instagram, get told that they're "loved," get to stop for a burger on their way home.

Of course Trump should be removed, immediately. He should have been removed years ago.

A message to Maine senator Susan Collins: why, no, it seems that he has not "learned his lesson." If you had possessed a spine during the impeachment proceedings, we wouldn't be in this position today.

Yesterday, when the news broke about the breaching of the Capitol, Paul was in our back room watching, of all things, a production of Shakespeare's Coriolanus. When I showed him the headline on my phone, I could see his mind start to jolt. Watching a play about insurrection during an insurrection . . . Maybe it's a strange coincidence. Maybe it's no surprise at all.

This is America, after all.

GEORGIA!

I was steeled for disappointment, and I woke to hope. Thank you, citizens, for saving our nation. Stacy Abrams, you are a wonder and a miracle. No one has done greater work this year.

I could sing, and maybe I will.

Now everything today feels brighter. I've got my 8 a.m. exercise class to endure, and then I'll spend the rest of the morning editing. Somehow I managed to forget to bake bread yesterday, so I'll need to rectify that. And Paul and I have some birthday-shopping plans for Tom.

But Georgia! I'm giddy with joy.

I am a person with a new haircut, and the future feels so rosy  . . . at least until I wash my hair and the beautiful style vanishes and I'm back to my usual stick-up-every-which-way. Still, even a mop is better than those terrible water-buffalo horns.

I don't know how you put-together people do it: nice hair, nice makeup, nice fingernails. I somehow never figured any of that out.

Well, enough, of this fancy talk. It's back-to-work week, and I spent yesterday answering emails and dealing with scheduling and generally trying to sort myself out. Occasionally I looked in on Paul, who was watching a National Theatre production of The Cherry Orchard (and who was subsequently pleased to discover that his review of the production almost exactly matched the opinion of the Guardian's theater maven). I put Byron back on the shelf and ordered a copy of Millay's Collected. I did not manage to get any exercise and was annoyed with myself.

Today: editing and bread baking, interspersed with more schedule planning and email answering. It's ridiculous how much time that can take up. No wonder people have secretaries. I've been invited to be a regular contributor to Teresa's newsletter, which will mean writing an essay at least every other month. Several people have asked me to mentor their poetry manuscripts. Plus teaching; plus editing. I have got to create some semblance of order on my calendar, or I will never figure out how to get anything done.

But first things first--make coffee for Tom's work mug, tidy the rooms, start the laundry, order fish and groceries . . .

So much juggling. I used to believe this would end when the boys grew up. Apparently not.

And another Monday rolls around.

Tom will head off to work on a house in Falmouth, Paul will be home today: I've decided to focus on a batch of poetry-related obligations this morning, and then get a hair cut, and then talk to Teresa about Byron, and at some point try to shoehorn in some vacuuming. 

I still feel kind of discombobulated from the holidays: with so many on/off days, I haven't quite figured out how to slip back onto the tracks. That's a big part of freelancing: not only knowing how to make myself get to work but also being deft at shifting and compressing tasks and schedules. I am pretty good at all of these skills, but on this first Monday of a new year I'm reeling a little. I'll figure out how to buckle down, but I'll be glad to have another cup of coffee while I'm doing so.

Yesterday I made a slow-cooked lamb ragu. Tonight I'll probably marinate chicken breasts and then stir-fry them with bok choy. For later in the week I'm planning soft-shell tacos with the leftover chicken; and if there is no leftover chicken (one never knows in this house), I'll get some fish. I'll likely make split-pea soup at some point.

Another day, another dinner. The round of cooking is endless . . . day in, day out. Not that I'm complaining. As chores go, making dinner is enjoyable enough. But my work days are long: we tend to eat on the late side, so I'm in the kitchen every night till close to 8. I like setting the table in our window-dark dining room: cloth napkins, cloth placemats, tidy silverware, two candles lit every night. I like the formality: sitting down together, unfolding our napkins, gazing thoughtfully into the flames. Often our meals are very quiet. A small parenthesis of ritual. 

Yesterday's kitchen-cupboard cleanout bonanza went more slowly than I'd hoped, but I did manage to wash and reorganize all of the dishes and cookware. That leaves me the pantry and spice shelves as well as the under-the-sink space to finish . . . plus all of the regular housework. Blah. I guess we'll see what actually gets done, because I also need to grocery-shop: the only vegetables in this house are carrots. Already Sunday is shaping up to be one of those days.

Ah, well. At least the cat let me sleep till 6 a.m. At least we have money in the account to grocery-shop with. At least we haven't had any electrical emergencies for, like, 10 days.

Tomorrow I'll start stepping back into my work: editing a manuscript, prepping for a lecture on character in poetry, prepping for a weekend poetry retreat, beginning a 6-week collaboration with a painter for Art in Common Places . . . also, blessedly, getting a haircut. According to the boys, my hair currently resembles a water buffalo's horns. These housemates of mine sure do know how to make a girl feel pretty.

It's nasty in Portland this morning--clots of snow/sleet/rain mashing down from the clouds--and I'm glad none of us has to go anywhere today. Unfortunately, however, I do have to drag the recycling etc. to the curb, an unattractive proposition that I'm postponing by writing to you.

My resolution for the day is to undertake a deep clean in the kitchen. With no cupboard doors, things quickly get grimy and dusty in there, so I'm going to unload each shelf, wash down the space, wash all of the dishes stored there, wipe down all of the bottles and boxes that live there, and thus slowly make my way through the entire room. I am not looking forward to this job, but a crappy-weather Saturday is probably as good a day as any. And now that Tom has given my new phone a new Spotify account, I'll have something to entertain me as plow through the shelves.

Speaking of plowing, I'm making progress on Swann's Way. I'll definitely finish it, but I can't say I've enjoyed it. The love affair between Swann and Odette is driving me nuts. He is such a sap, and she is such a bitch, and the pair of them are so unlikable that I'm finding Proust's depiction of obsession barely tolerable. I can't wait to be reading something else.

Let's ring in the new year by admitting we don't like something we're expected to like (or that we expected ourselves to like): I'll start with Proust, and throw in pomegranates, French New Wave movies, the couch in the back room, the poems of Wallace Stevens, Cadbury Creme Eggs, flannel sheets, Leonard Cohen songs, anything written by Scott and Helen Nearing, and long underwear.

And so this is 2021 . . . first light spreading into the blue-black sky. The bare arms of maples cut silhouettes against the dawn. Below them a clutter of roofs and chimneys huddles against the thin chill of January. Everything is quiet, not even a dog or a walker passing by.

Last night, waving sparklers, the neighborhood kids ran shrieking up and down, up and down, up and down the street, wild and rapturous. Our household of three sat in the dining room, eating Chinese takeout, watching the children dash past the windows, and I thought about the ways in which we humans borrow from other people's joy, enrich ourselves with other people's happiness. I suppose this is part of what it means to be communal animals.

For everyone, a central sadness of 2020 has been loneliness. The struggle with and against loneliness has framed all of our lives, whether we've been obeying scientific best practices or flouting them. And for far too many, loneliness is now permanent. Death, the great isolator, has locked the gates.

The next few months will be dark. A new year is not a new world. So last night, as I watched the kids skipping and shouting with their sparklers, I wondered how to push myself to keep borrowing sustenance from our stock of communal joy: to pay attention to a baby's laughter, to a bright wind, to the foolishness of cats. I want to stop overlooking these tiny moments. I want to treat them as saviors.