Even in my dreams I've been juggling desk work, errands, travel prep, class prep, gardening, laundry . . . I wake up at 4 a.m. with to-do lists streaming like banners from my subconscious. I'm not anxious at all about this coming trip; I'm wholeheartedly looking forward to it. Nonetheless, I've got a thousand things to remember to finish, find, clean, dig, and pack; so when the springtime birds start screeching in the near-darkness, I'm instantly screeching right along with them.

Yesterday started off cloudy but gradually morphed into gorgeous. And today, apparently, will be gorgeous from beginning to end. First thing, I'm getting my hair cut--a fine start to a fine day. Who wouldn't want to embark on an adventure with a fresh haircut? Then I'll spend the rest of my day sifting through my various tasks and trying to be outside as much as possible.

Packing for this trip is an interesting challenge. I need to bring as much of my own food as possible for my long day on the train: that's three meals and snacks. I need to carry along a few comfort items for the train--travel pillow and blanket, simple toiletries--plus my reader/writer/time-filling materials: laptop, notebook, novels, crosswords. I need to save room in my suitcase for the teaching materials (participant manuscripts, webcam) I'll use to run next Sunday's zoom class from Chicago. I need to pack clothes and shoes that address the variability of spring weather and the likelihood that I'll be walking for many miles plus going to fun big-city places where I ought not to look as if I've just rolled out of a sleeping bag. I need a hat to deal with the sun, a raincoat to deal with the rain. And I need to be able to cram all of this stuff into a small rolling suitcase, a small backpack, and a not-too-large-or-heavy picnic bag.

You see why it's taking me an entire week to figure this out?

In and among such distractions, I did manage to do a bit of gardening yesterday--planted two new perennials in the backyard: a golden spikenard in a shady corner and an azure baptisia (also known as false indigo) in a sunny spot. I bought a few bags of seaweed mulch and spread them over the new lily bed out front and around the Japanese maple bed in the back. And I ate my lunch at the new table in the back garden, ensconced cozily among flowers and laundry.

I also cooked a meal that made me very happy . . . what I'm calling tagliatelle carbonara alla spring in Maine--a delightful, if nontraditional, concoction of bacon, white wine, eggs, and a big handful of parsley, garlic chives, and green onions fresh from the garden, tossed with flat noodles, served in blue and white bowls, and garnished with violets. It was a lovely sight on the table. 

Yesterday was so busy and un-Sunday-like: yard work all morning, teaching all afternoon, then dinner making, laundry folding, and all of the petty catchup tasks. But it was a good day, too. I mowed and trimmed, hung up the hammock, assembled the new outdoor table, planted dahlias, scrubbed moss off the house siding. And then, after lunch, I spent three hours with my new class of manuscript makers, moving them from anxiety into the first stages of confidence, which is always a satisfying progression. And then there was dinner: oven-fried haddock, farro, caramelized fennel and onions, and cherry tomatoes in vinaigrette, with fresh mangoes for dessert--an easy-to-make yet handsome meal and a fine punctuation mark on a long day.

I'm very happy with my spring gardens this year . . . just enough rain, no sudden temperature swings, no groundhog, and no particular trouble with insects yet. Here on the Terrace, the garlic is coming up well, as are the herbs along the perimeter, and I've got tomato stakes, the bean tower, and the cucumber trellis set up, ready for planting when I return from Chicago.

The little houses I brought back from Mount Desert Island--which my late friend Curtis had found on the side of the road, and which his wife gave me as a memento of him--have settled into their new neighborhood.

And the violets are in their modest glory, clustering among paving stones and thyme.

In the sidewalk garden my son calls Lantern Waste, white candytuft and golden cushion spurge are bright against the tulips and the peonies are coming in strong. Flowers give me such happiness.

This morning I'll undergo my exercise regimen, put in some editing time, and work on my George Herbert homework, and in the afternoon I'll devote myself to errands and garden matters. I'm eager to try out the new outside table; I need to mulch the new sidewalk lilies; I've got to do a round of weeding. We had steady rain last night, and today the temperature is supposed to reach 70 degrees, so I expect the yard to explode into high spring before my eyes. 

I got home midday with a trunkful of plants from Angela's garden--mostly lilies but also bloodroot and a big sedum. As a result, I had to finally overcome my procrastination and start digging up the ugly strip of grass between sidewalk and street. I've been wanting to get rid of the grass since we moved in, but I've had too many other garden jobs to keep me busy. Plus, nursery stock is expensive, and the sidewalk plot is a tricky spot--always under onslaught from dogs, snowplows, and the Public Works Department--and it requires plants that will be hardy under difficult conditions, that won't flop too much over the sidewalk, that will spread thickly enough to be their own weed control, and that won't break my heart when a guy with a jackhammer shows up. I've got a lot of street frontage (for a city yard), and not enough plants to fill the entire strip. But Ang did give me enough for a good-sized patch, and so I settled down to the chore: I broke a big chunk of weedy sod, hacked the tangled lily plants into plantable bunches, and set them into their new roadside home.

This morning I've got to hang laundry, mow grass, catch up on some other stuff that I haven't remembered yet, and then this afternoon I'll be in class, leading the first session of the current round of my chapbook seminar. Meanwhile, T is going to a Sea Dogs game with a friend, and I am a little bit jealous as currently the top-three Red Sox prospects are playing in Portland, and I know they won't be in Double-A for long.

Last night we had a treat for dinner: T brought home soft-shell crabs from the fish market, the first of the season. So I soaked them in milk, then dredged them in flour and fried them up, and we ate them with yogurt and caper sauce, alongside roasted potatoes with green onions and a big salad of baby kale, charred shishito peppers, cherry tomatoes, and fresh mint. I love these first big handfuls of garden herbs . . . the new onions, the chives and garlic chives, the first sprigs of mint and parsley and sage. And the wintered-over kale is still going strong.

In just a few days I'll be heading down to Boston to catch the Lake Shore Limited, and I am getting more and more excited. I don't know why I'm looking forward to this adventure so much, but I'm glad I am. . . I so often fret about traveling, but I'm straight-up thrilled about this trip. I keep pondering over all of the little details . . . how will I manage my toothbrush on the train? what books will I bring to read? how many meals do I need to pack for myself? where should it all fit into my backpack? And then once I get to Chicago, J has all kinds of fun planned--good food and a trip to the botanical gardens and maybe a White Sox game, and we're going to figure out his gardening situation, and we're going to hang out and tell jokes and admonish his misbehaving cats.

For now, though, I need to keep my head in the present tense: yard chores, class prep. And afterward, in the late afternoon, maybe I'll treat myself to a bike ride, and then I'll cook up some haddock for dinner, watch the evening clouds roll in, and imagine summer. "Durer would have seen a reason for living in a town like this." I don't even love the poems of Marianne Moore, but that line is always, always in my head.

I'm lying in bed in Wellington as a mourning dove coos on the roof over my head. Sharp spring air ripples through the open window, and I am in no rush to get up, to do anything at all.

Yesterday's gallery opening was packed with parents and grandparents and siblings. So many people came out to see our young people's work. I tell you, when I watch guys in motorsports sweatshirts and "Don't Tread on Me" caps tiptoeing respectfully among poems and paintings, I know something in this world has gone right.

And then, on our way home, Angela and I saw a moose! . . . a beautiful young cow browsing on the edge on the road. She slipped into the brush as I stopped the car, but turned to watch us, and lingered there for a few moments as we cooed and admired. It had been a long time since either Ang or I had seen a moose--even in the north country they've gotten rare, thanks to tick infestations--so this was special.

Of course, because the homeland is a crazy place, even as we were swooning over our moose sighting, we were discussing whether or not we were likely to drive into a police roadblock. A carload of guys apparently held up a convenience store at gunpoint and then drove like mad up a Wellington dirt road, straight into a pond, got their SUV stuck on a beaver dam (!), and vamoosed into the woods, with K-9s in hot pursuit. Local scuttlebutt says they've since been caught, but, boy, it's a thrill a minute up here.

Light drifts in earlier and earlier every morning. A few weeks ago the sky was black velvet at 5 a.m., but now it is streaked with blue and gold, the houses and streets and flowers subdued but visible, the streetlamps already beginning to blink out.

I sit here in my couch corner with my small cup of coffee, with my head full of the poem drafts I scribbled last night. I sit here and listen to the gulls screech up from the cove, listen for the cat to come yowling to the door, demanding to be let back inside. This has been, on the whole, a quiet week, but the busyness starts again today. This afternoon I'll head north for the Monson Arts kids' gallery opening, then home tomorrow, teaching on Sunday, a flurry of desk and house and yard work next week, and then my adventure west.

Last night's writing group was a relief. I wrote three drafts to three prompts, and all have promise. It feels good to have a notebook full of material as I get ready to embark on my train voyage. The question is: what books should I bring along to read? The massive Barker bio of the Brontes, which I'm currently immersed in, would be a terrible burden to tote around the cities. I need to find a few slim paperbacks--but not too slim as I'll have many hours to fill with reading. My sons have a running joke about how to calculate the number of books I'm liable to bring along per day of travel. But my new little backpack will only hold so much . . . which is one of the reasons I bought it: to curb my book-lugging tendencies. Say it again, Dawn: I do not need to drag my library through the streets of Chicago. 

Well, for the moment I just need to focus on today's packing; on today's housework and yard work and desk work. I'll go for a walk this morning, I'll wash sheets and towels and clean the downstairs rooms, I'll do a of bit yard work if there's time, and then I'll drive north. I'll be staying with my friends in Wellington tonight; I'll sleep to the sounds of owls and peepers. It will be my last visit up north until late June, and I'm looking forward to the spring woods, to conversation, to gardens and open windows. 

I slept hard last night and am now attempting to come to grips with being upright and awake. Funny how the more sleep I get, the more sleep I want. But, alas. The alarm is inexorable. No wallowing. Get up, get up.

Well, anyway it's Thursday, and I like Thursdays--paycheck day, writing group night--even if this one will feature a trip to the dentist. Once again, the little northern city by the sea will be cool and rainy, but I've got plenty to keep me occupied under cover . . . editing a novel, working on poem drafts, running errands, cleaning the upstairs rooms, listening to afternoon baseball, cooking something or other to carry to the writers' dinner.

Yesterday my Brooklyn son spent most of the day concocting Julia Child's recipe for cassoulet, which he planned to serve at a dinner party he was giving for his [godparents? uncles? beloved unrelated family members who've treasured him since he was a baby and have been entangled with his parents since their own callow youth so why isn't there a name for this relationship? The English language is dumb]. He'd never made cassoulet before, I've never made cassoulet before, so we spent much time on the phone pondering and fretting and cheerleading. I do love that my children dive into cooking. T and I did exactly the same thing at their age: we'd splash headlong into some ridiculous 1960s-era French recipe, and we'd sink or swim . . . quite a bit of sinking, actually, as I was an extremely plain cook and T had never cooked at all as a kid, but our spirits were high.

Today I will no doubt hear all about the travails and/or successes of the dinner party. I look forward to it. How pale life would be without this ongoing boy chatter. 

We got nailed with another round of non-forecast, laundry-destroying showers yesterday, plus I got caught in the rain on my walk and came home soaked. But the plants are loving the weather, so I will not complain. The herb seedlings I dug in on Monday are glowing, pea and onion shoots are spiking, and the tulips are in their glory. The air may be chilly, but I'm basking in these evenings of warm wood stove and open windows--the ultimate northcountry luxury.

Yesterday was filled with this-and-thats: some editing, some manuscript work. I managed to force myself to send out a couple of poems, and I fidgeted around with a few blurts from my notebook. I read about the Brontes; I read Drabble's The Sea Lady. I repaired the torn sole on one of my favorite sneakers. I started figuring out dates for my autumn visit to Brooklyn. I wrote to a friend about her poems. I ordered an old-fashioned fifties-style metal patio table so we can eat dinner in the backyard this summer. I fell asleep on the couch for an hour.

Today will be another loose-limbed day, showery and cool and mostly unplanned, though we are going out to the movies tonight, to see Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. Happy damp May Day, with its cherry-tree lanes and tulip crowds, with its passerine birds shrilling hectically in gray first light, with its bad-hair middle-school boys playing theatrical kickball in the middle of the street, then suddenly scattering for dinner. Happy damp May Day, when lawn-care guys attempt to spread mulch and stare at their phones simultaneously; when one of those innocents decides to take a whiz behind the client's garage, unaware that three kitchen windows have a front-row view.

Here's a poem I haven't been able to stop thinking about this spring--

Assault

Edna St. Vincent Millay

I

I had forgotten how the frogs must sound
After a year of silence, else I think
I should not so have ventured forth alone
At dusk upon this unfrequented road.


II

I am waylaid by Beauty. Who will walk
Between me and the crying of the frogs?
Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass,
That am a timid woman, on her way
From one house to another!