Today I am scrambling back onto the work train. This afternoon I'll run the first of a three-Sunday seminar on manuscript organization. Then next week I'll need to go up to Monson twice: once for class, once for a gallery opening. That will end my high school season, just as Frost Place season is getting underway. No matter what, there will always be something to get frantic about.

But what a beautiful day we had yesterday--75 degrees, sunny, with a soft wind! I worked outside--planting, weeding, mowing--then changed into clean clothes and walked up to the market to buy dinner: flank steak, red onions, and peppers for the grill and, delight of delights, fiddleheads. How I miss my Harmony patch; I was so happy to see them there.

For lunch T walked down to one of the local Vietnamese restaurants and bought bahn mi sandwiches, and we ate them messily outside, in the sunshine.  He spent most of the day finishing the shed, the bits he couldn't get done before winter settled in. He built a door and cut trim, painted everything, and today is hoping to get a second coat on and everything installed so that he can finally call the project done. He's also been talking about his next carpenterial venture . . . a deck, and I am holding my breath, trying not to get too excited, because that would be so, so, so nice. All we have now are some temporary stairs, and the back of the house is ugly and raw-looking. A deck and real entrance stairs would be such an improvement.

It will be another glorious day, weather-wise, and I'll be holed up in my study all afternoon, working away at manuscripts. But I'll catch a bit of the day this morning: as soon as I finish writing to you, I'm going to get dressed, pull Vita the Bike out of the shed, and go for my first ride of the season. Tires are pumped, frame is washed, spring is everywhere, and I am excited.

All week these four rosy tulips have been the centerpiece of the view from my front window. But already, since this photo was taken, the view has changed; the petals are dropping; time, squirrels, and weather have imposed their will. Loveliness is so brief.

It is Saturday, my only day off this weekend, as I'm beginning a three-session manuscript seminar tomorrow. I've got lots to do--laundry, gardening, groceries--but the forecast is spectacular: bright sunshine, temperatures in the 70s, after a week of cold rain. T and I are planning our first fire-pit dinner of the season, and I'm also hoping to get my bike out, dust it off, pump up the tires, and take it for an inaugural spin.

I worked on a poem draft yesterday, talked to Teresa about Donne, dealt with various teaching-related issues, edited a manuscript, and then I made porkchops marinated in lime and garlic chives, buttered quinoa and millet, roasted fennel and onions, new lettuce and arugula from the garden, and the piece-de-resistance, a mango galette--not only cute but also delicious. I was quite pleased with myself, as every part of this meal was a total invention.

Cooking is so fun.

Woke up to rain, of course, but the clouds will begin to clear today. After a chilly wet week, temperatures are supposed to rise, the sun is supposed to come out, and by Sunday (when I have to spend the entire afternoon on zoom, of course) the weather will be glorious.

Still, there will be no laundry on the line today. Everything outside is completely sopped--lively and growing, spongy and dripping. No towel would dream of drying out in this weather. But I got my housework done yesterday, and a fair amount of desk work, so if Helios should venture into town this afternoon, I'm prepared to fling myself into his arms.

Last night I went out to the salon and for some reason kept writing drafts about clothes: a memoir of childhood play clothes, a diatribe about a mean dress. The play-clothes blurt might be worth messing around with, and maybe I'll do that today, along with talking to Teresa about Donne, and cranking out a few more pages of editing, and making a mango pie. (I've discovered that those small yellow mangos work as a straight substitute for peaches in recipes, and they also happen to be on sale.)

I do wonder why my brain was so fixated on clothes.

Already the clouds seem to be breaking up. Watery sunlight filters through a drenched sky. A cardinal belts out Pew, pew, pew in a local maple. The neighborhood air smells like toast.

I am thinking about a thousand things, and it is spring.

Even I, a person who loves all weather, drew the line at kneeling in the mud in yesterday's 40-degree rain. No weeding or planting was accomplished. The cat and I stayed in all day, I lit a fire mid-afternoon, T and I ate lentil soup for dinner: it was, as my mother likes to complain with a shudder, raw.

I don't know that today will be much better, but I'll need to trudge out into it anyway: meet a writer for coffee this morning, then head out to the salon tonight. In between times, I have to houseclean and catch up on paperwork, probably edit a little, probably futz around with Frost Place stuff . . . it will be one of those days, filled with a thousand niggly chores.

But I got a lot done yesterday: importantly, I finished the first draft of that essay I've been laboring over, so that was a relief. I'm not sure why I found it so hard to put together, but such is the writing life. Sometimes the work feels like sewing teeth. Anyway, I crossed the finish line, puffing and sweating and tripping over my shoelaces, and now I can set the piece aside and let it stew in its sauce for a while. (Boy am I going crazy with the mixed metaphors this morning.)

And I finished a poem, and I organized a class, and I got a chunk of editing done, so today I can "relax" (e.g., vacuum and scrub toilets) without guilt. What a romantic life a poet leads.

Meanwhile, the rain keeps falling. The gardens are sodden; the streams are overflowing. Maine is water and mud and quarreling birds and green shoots and fog and cloud and magnolia blossoms and earthworms in puddles and torrents over dams and blue-eyed forget-me-nots smiling in the too-long grass.

It looks like we've got yet another day of drizzle and fog ahead. Oh, well. I'm not against a cozy growing week, and that's certainly what's happening out there. Everywhere buds are swelling to the bursting point; sharp tulip blooms glow in the mist; the grass is Technicolor; arugula and spinach beg to be harvested.

I'll likely do a bit of gardening despite the wet. I want to start weeding out the maple seedlings in the Hill Country (the rough bit of "woodland" between my driveway and the neighbors'), and I want to plant sunflowers and zinnias in the cold frame so they get a good start before I transfer them into the ground. But that will come later in the day. First, my exercise bout; then a meeting and class prep for Sunday; then some editing and a little more time with that essay I'm writing, which is close to being done, I think.

I'm so grateful to have a week with some elbow room in it. It's amazing how many hours I spend on picky little this-n-thats: writing up class descriptions for workshops I'm asked to teach, corresponding with potential students, etc., etc. None of this is actual "work," but it's all work, and I'm glad to have some space to get such stuff under control.

Next week I'll be up north twice, so the breathlessness will return. But today, spring rain, cups of tea, Jane Austen's Emma. An old song but a good one.

Looks like we're in for another round of choppy weather today: thunderstorms, maybe hail, and a temp that won't climb higher than 60 degrees . . . a strange raw summer-like menu. No laundry on the line, clearly, and likely no work outside either. But yesterday did brighten after lunchtime, and I'm glad I had the wherewithal to pick up the branch detritus and then quickly run the reel mower over the patch of front lawn. Weather like this turns grass into fiends.

Inside, I'll be editing, juggling Frost Place stuff, working on poems, reviving my languishing essay. If the weather turns out better than expected, I might get my bike out, fill the tires, dust off my helmet, take it for a neighborhood spin. But I doubt the weather will be better than expected.

Whatever happens, it's pleasant to have a few days offstage. For the moment the sky is bluing, a phoebe is singing, and the neighbor's cherry tree is shimmering with new blossoms. I want to be a poet today, and I think I will be. Maybe poet only means "Pay attention." 

There's something about a very wet Sunday: it feels like a kind of holiday, when everyone is obliged to do nothing in particular. T and I spent our Saturday rushing from one project to another and, in contrast, spent our Sunday idling over poems (me), photo contact sheets (him), Donne and Le Carre (me), the New Yorker (him), as a fire hissed in the grate and the cups were repeatedly refilled with tea. Early afternoon, I tuned into the Sox game on the radio. Late afternoon, we yawned and stretched and donned our raincoats and splashed around the block to the local restaurant, for a drink and some oysters. It was all very urbane.

And it was a good thing, too, that we had such a relaxing day because the night was wild. A gale whipped up, rain crashed against the windows, the roof felt like it was lifting off. Even the cat struggled to stay calm. Nobody got much sleep for a while.

This morning my cold frame is upside down; the row cover blew off the chard bed and wedged itself between the cars; the cucumber trellis is flat; twigs and catkins and garbage cans are everywhere. Apparently we got 3 inches of rain; what a torrent!

But now, it seems, the storm has blown out to sea. A bit of slow drizzle patters against the windows, but the wind has gentled. Cardinals are singing loudly; the cats have resumed their prowls. After I get dressed, I'll try to resettle the garden arrangements and figure out what other damage might have ensued.