Hey, the big news around here is that Chuck is a champ about vacation. First, he spent the three-hour car ride fast asleep in his crate . . . not a peep out of him the whole way, a vast change from Ruckus, who howled every moment he was in a car. Then, when he arrived, he carefully looked the cottage over, discreetly acknowledged his litterbox, greeted our friend for dinner, slept comfortably in bed all night, and now, this morning, he has enjoyed a good breakfast and is washing his face by the wood stove. He admits to being a little perturbed by the noise of an unfamiliar coffee maker, but otherwise he thinks vacation is extremely fun. (Pardon the unclear picture, but black cats are non-photogenic in low light.)

Tom had packed and loaded the car while I was in class, so we left almost immediately after I finished yesterday, which was good because the nights come in so early now and the island roads are overrun by deer. For years, hunting was prohibited on Mount Desert, so the deer population exploded. I think there is very controlled hunting in Tremont now, but so far it hasn't made much of a dent. The deer are everywhere, and they are not a bit shy. On a five-minute drive to pick up a pizza last night, I was stopped by four in the road at various places, all of them completely indifferent to traffic.

So here we are for a week, ensconced in the little cottage by the cove. Though the sky is beginning to lighten, the water is still invisible in the darkness. But when I open the porch door, I breathe in thick briny sea air and hear the first chuckles of the black ducks waking in the shallows.

Yet now I look up and see that night is rolling up its blanket--Swan's Island hunkers on the horizon, a long blue streak against the paler clouds, and the spruce-crowded coastline curls like crab claws around the little cove. The crackle of an engine kicks at the quiet--a lobster boat starting out on its trap rounds. And I can see that the tide is high, see ripples folding toward the shore, see jagged boulders shrinking into islets. Above everything, blue-gray clouds, low-slung and heavy,  as dramatic as a Turner painting.

It's a dark, wet morning, and I woke too early, mostly because of fretting about packing. We're planning to head to the island right after I finish teaching today. Tom will deal with food and cat packing while I'm at work, but I haven't cast even one thought toward suitcase and book bag, and my overnight brain would not let me forget that.

Now here I sit, still not packing but at least the stupid nighttime worry button has been disengaged. A fire crackles in the stove. Chuckie leans against my shoulder and purrs into my ear. I'm happy we're bringing him along with us to the cottage. I think he'll have fun, once he recovers from his perplexity.

In the meantime, I've got another day of work ahead. It's a very full class, and the drafts that people are writing have been so interesting. I never know what will happen when I create these classes, but the Grimm tales certainly have been potent. Because of how I've designed the prompts, I haven't really been able to write alongside everyone else this weekend, but actually that's been okay. My brain is still full of Awake at the Olympus, and I don't want my imagination to veer away from that concentration. It's gratifying enough to enjoy everyone else's drafts.

Tomorrow, when I write to you, I'll be back on the island, staring out into November light as it unfolds over Goose Cove. Tom is so excited to go. He cannot wait to be there. I'll pack, I'll drive, I'll do all the work, as long as we can leave today, he urged. He knows me: I would be slow, I'd wait till tomorrow morning, I'd milk out one more night at home. But he is eager, eager, and I love that too. So off we go.

It rained yesterday afternoon, and all night, and is supposed to rain today and into tomorrow . . . we haven't had this much precipitation in months. Though temperatures are still on the mild side, I lit a fire in the stove this morning, just to drive off the dankness.

Later this morning I'll be leaping into a brand-new weekend poetry class, but for now life feels pretty calm. And happily I'm also feeling a fresh surge of writing excitement. Yesterday, during our zoom visit, Jeannie and Teresa both gave me so many good ideas for tweaks to Awake at the Olympus. The suggestions are small but significant, and I'm excited to start fiddling with them, once I'm out to grass for the week. I'm so grateful to have such sharp-witted, sympathetic readers. I love the characters in this manuscript. They have come alive to me; they live beyond my imagination now. They are reaching off the page to other readers, and this feels immensely sweet.

My first literary idol was Charles Dickens. His characters slayed me. When I was a little girl, I thought nothing could be more wonderful than to invent such worlds. A lifetime later, I'm not sure I've changed my mind.

Another warmish morning, this time with a soaking rain on the horizon. The air is already full of moisture, and my hair, after reverting to winter straightness, has returned to its curly summer ways. I haven't lit the wood stove in three days, which feels so odd in November. And yet brief daylight, heaps of leaves on sidewalks, bare maples craning over houses: the streets of this little city are a portrait of late autumn.

Yesterday I sent off an editing sample to the author I'm working for, which means I'm on editing hiatus until he responds. So today will be full of this-n-thats: my exercise class at the Y, tidying up my study before I teach in it all weekend, talking with Teresa and Jeannie during our Poetry Lab zoom. I doubt I'll get any raking done outside, given the rainy forecast, but maybe.

I did go out to my writing group last night, and I did produce two so-called drafts, but since I finished Awake at the Olympus I haven't written a real poem. I shouldn't repine over that, but I do. Not writing makes me feel blank, no matter how busy I'm keeping myself, or how much I need a rest. Right now I'm not particularly tired or overwhelmed by other obligations. I could certainly fit a new poem project into the interstices, but no. I have reverted to once, long ago, last week, I was a poet. 

Yesterday's weather was bizarrely warm, and I think we've got a few more unseasonable days ahead before temperatures settle back into typical November. I opened windows upstairs and down, glad to have a chance to air out the fug that always settles into a closed-up house. 

After an insane October, I'm realigning into a more familiar work pattern: big editing project punctuated by teaching days. But I'm also looking forward to a bit of a respite. This weekend I'll be leading my next online Poetry Kitchen session, and then afterward T and Chuckie and I are going up to the cottage for our semiannual stay on Mount Desert Island. We'll be there longer than usual this time--for most of a week--and Chuck is coming with us, an adventure for all.

I'll probably do some editing while we're at the cottage, but I'm also hoping to think about chapbook organization, catch up with my Berryman reading, maybe step back from Awake at the Olympus and consider what I've actually made. But in fact none of this is crucial. I don't have a tight editing deadline, and if all I do is read murder mysteries and take naps at strange times of the day, well, then so be it.

Today, however, is a work day. I'll go for my walk, deal with laundry, edit, prep for the weekend class. Maybe I'll rake leaves or clear out garden beds. I'll pick up our CSA order and bake an orange cake for tonight's writing group. I like these days when I need to mix up brain work with housework. I like watching new daylight stain the night sky. I like listening to crows bark in the maples. I like knowing that T gets to sleep in a little this morning instead of rushing off into a long day of labor.

Here's some John Clare for you--crazy, confused, adoring John, that lonely Romantic, so obssessed with his landscape, the plants and animals. I wonder how he and William Blake would have gotten along, if they'd ever happened to meet.

Autumn

John Clare

The thistledown's flying, though the winds are all still,

On the green grass now lying, now mounting the hill,

The spring from the fountain now boils like a pot;

Through stones past the counting it bubbles red-hot.

The ground parched and cracked is like overbaked bread,

The greensward all wracked is, bents dried up and dead.

The fallow fields glitter like water indeed,

And gossamers twitter, flung from weed unto weed.

Hill-tops like hot iron glitter bright in the sun,

And the rivers we're eying burn to gold as they run;

Burning hot is the ground, liquid gold is the air;

Whoever looks round sees Eternity there.

Good morning, Americans! By which I mean holy shit!

What a rout! I can't decide if I feel more like an upside-down Labrador retriever scratching my back in spring grass or more like an exploding fountain of tears. After 30 years, Maine's red Senate seat has flipped blue. Susan Collins is gone. Hurray for Troy!

I'm relieved, but not surprised, that Hannah Pingree will be our next governor. Her mother Chellie Pingree was a solid shoo-in for first district U.S. Rep. But our second district situation is almost as amazing as the Senate flip: LePage and Dunlap look like they're headed for a run-off election. I never expected Dunlap to make a dent in the conservative towns, but he has been fully competitive.

And then there's Texas, and Kansas, and South Carolina . . . What a massive relief. It's dizzying.

Tonight Tom and I are going out to the movies to watch the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup. Hail Fredonia, pals! Here's to better times ahead!

It was a beautiful day for a drive north yesterday, and then last night I slept like a rock--and not like a small stone; more like a granite boulder. So I am waking up this morning with fresh air creeping through the open window and the sound of someone else lighting the stove and making coffee downstairs--a vacationy feeling, despite the fact that I have to hoick myself up and go to work.

Today my class will be focusing on details. We'll play with using them to swell and shrink drafts in various ways, and along the way I think I'll talk a little with them about what I've been doing with my recent Sappho-prompted project. I don't usually use my own work as an example, but sometimes it seems pertinent. What happens when you set yourself up for mystery? If nothing else, I hope these young people learn the glory of surprise.