Yesterday was performance day, so we started off slowly, with a walk and then an hour in the pool, before heading to the studio midday so our dancer could start her warm-up process.

All four of us pallid northerners have become quite attached to the pool. This is most surprising in my case as I can barely swim. But an outdoor heated pool is such a pleasure--both restful and scintillating for the body; sociable yet, as soon as I lean back to float, deliciously alone.

This project will ultimately have three parts--Slate, Mountain, Lake. For yesterday's event we were only performing Slate, but Lake and Mountain have also been part of our workdays. Each has come together in an entirely individual form, moving urgently into place as we've read over the materials together. It's been such an intense experience to feel this happening as a unit of four artists.

Teresa had invited about twenty-five people to what she was calling an open rehearsal of Slate. So though we were not under pressure to have a burnished final product, we did feel we were putting on a real performance. It began with poetry, then a dance with music, then a step back to talk about how the dance had been made from the individual words of the first poem. Then we moved into found pieces from high school yearbooks, mixed with movement and more original poems, an erasure piece from an obituary, and finally a closing dance involving all four of us.

I will have photos to post soon as Tom has been documenting the project steadily, and Teresa's husband John made a full video of the performance which may also be available at some point.

But the audience reaction was hugely gratifying. They had not known what to expect, and they responded whole-heartedly to the piece. They talked a lot about their feelings and reactions afterward, even asked if we could come back to Sarasota so they could see all three sections in their final forms. Maybe that will happen, maybe it won't, but the point is that they were excited and they wanted more.

Not everything can go perfectly in Florida. We got through two innings of the Orioles-Yankees game, and then the heavens let loose and an extremely inept grounds crew rushed onto the field in bare feet and struggled to drag the tarp over the infield. But it got stuck on something, so eventually they gave up and left third base to its fate. Throughout the downpour they scurried onto the exposed base paths dumping bags of drying agent around the sodden base so the place looked like a sandbox covered in anthills. We, fortunately, were sitting under an overhang within direct sight of the shenanigans at third base, so a good time was had by all. These were not major league grounds people. Definitely they are vying for a spot on the roster and I daresay most will get cut.

Eventually it became that clear the game was not likely to continue, so we admitted defeat and went out for Indian food instead. And then back in the apartment we sat around for a while and watched lightning flash over the keys. Probably I will never see another spring training game but for two innings the Orioles were far superior to the lackluster Yankees, and you don't see grounds crew comedy every day. I'd call it a win.

Today is our performance day. For reasons involving our dancer's prep needs and timing, we aren't going to the studio till noon, and then we'll work all afternoon until people start arriving at 4. Our staged rehearsal will run for 25 minutes, and then there will be a talk-back and mingling, and sometime this evening I'll get back to the apartment and then will immediately have to phone my son so we can do our NCAA brackets together.

But this morning will be quiet. As usual, wherever I go, I'm the first person up. But soon Tom will head out to take photos, and G and G and I will go out for walk by the water, and maybe later I'll even get a chance to sit around and read a little. That would be a novelty.

Yesterday, after work, we drove to the beach on Lido Key, and here we are, standing in water the color of sea glass, being happy together.

This has been a lovely trip, and the exotic surroundings are only part of the fun. For both of us working and hanging out with four other really smart, inventive, collaborative people who are also sweet and entertaining and non-fussy and hardworking has been fantastic.

Yesterday morning, before work, some of us went to the farmers' market and bought fresh berries and vegetables. So after the beach the four northerners made dinner in the apartment for the six of us. How dinner got made was more or less how the entire work day has gone--nobody was in charge but somehow people wandered in and out of the kitchen and produced a meal together.

Collaboration is magical.

 I am not good at remembering to take photos of anything except birds, and I will try to rectify that this morning as Teresa is picking us up early to go over to the beach on Lido Key.

In the park ponds, these noisy black-bellied whistling ducks congregate like mallards do in our northern ponds. I haven't yet had a chance to look through the bird books and identify the others that I saw there.

I've had almost no sitting-around-with-a-book moments since I stepped off the plane on Thursday. The four faculty members spent six hours together in the studio yesterday and we got a surprising amount of work done: not only fully shaping the content of part 1 of our three-part performance, but also blocking it out spacially. Then afterward the three northerners (plus Tom, when he returned from his long day of walking around town with a camera) got into the pool, and then we all made our way to Teresa and John's place for a sociable pizza night. So you see: yes, fun! But not much time to do any bird research yet.

And now I must rush off and drink coffee. You see how hard my life is.

Believe it or not, this is the daylight view from my living room window . . . Sarasota Bay.

We arrived around noon, a fairly expeditious trip, though since we'd been up since 3:30 we felt like we'd been on the road forever. When I stepped through the doors of baggage claim, my skin was shocked by the temperature change: 80 degrees and humid. My lank winter hair instantly began curling, and in the apartment we demonstrated our heat-starved northernness by immediately opening the windows and turning off the air conditioning, apparently a thing that no Floridians ever do.

Yesterday was mostly business: getting everyone from the airport, dealing with car rental and grocery shopping. Today we'll go to work. Exactly what that will mean I don't know, except that I think we need to get poems into the air.

I feel like I'm in an alien world. Florida is not a place I can easily imagine myself, even when I'm here. I look across this bay, ringed with highways and high-rises, and wonder what such an expanse would have been before Europeans arrived.  This is where Cabeza de Vaca set foot on North American soil. There is no silence now.

Apparently I made the correct decision not to travel north because this morning I see that half of my schools have already canceled because of the impending ice storm. Well, I'm relieved that this wasn't just me being spleeny; also relieved that I don't have to spend another sad class on zoom; also extremely relieved that I will not be driving through ice, snow, and freezing rain for three hours.

Instead, I've had two unexpected days at home, which has not only been a huge help as regards my editing schedule but is also allowing me to enter into this Florida adventure in a more relaxed way. Originally I planned to be teaching a full day up north, then making the long drive home, then rushing Chuck to the cat kennel, then rushing home and dealing with cat litter, trash, packing, refrigerator emptying, etc. I'll still have to deal with all of that end-of-the-day flurry, but at least the rest of the day will be less stressful.

You won't hear from me tomorrow morning as we have to be out of the house by 4:30 a.m. But if all goes smoothly, I'll be back to posting on Friday.

Argh, March. After a few days of warmth and melt, tomorrow will drop us back into cooler temperatures and rain, which is no big deal here in Portland. But up north the forecast is for sleet and freezing rain all day, so now I'm back to the everlasting conundrum: do I take the risk and drive to central Maine this afternoon, or do I zoom yet again with my students? Will they even have school if the weather is as crappy as it's forecast to be? Blah. With a plane to catch on Thursday morning, I can't take the risk of being trapped up there tomorrow. But how I hate to zoom with my young people.

Well, I guess I'll figure out something or other this morning. Rural Mainers love to shame those of us who don't like to drive in wretched weather, and after 20 years among them I still wrestle with my weak-mindedness in that regard. Also, I feel so guilty about zooming again. During our last class I was stuck in Brooklyn in a blizzard, and I said to the kids then: "This is it! No more zooming!" And now the weather gods are snickering and snorting gleefully among themselves. They always have the last word.

Enough about tomorrow. Today, at least, will be reliably gorgeous . . . another dose of sunshine and warmth, the scent of thawing earth, new green spikes among the muddy leaves. We've lost a lot of snow over the past few days. My back yard is almost visible again, and today I may mosey out there and investigate what's what under the mulch. March, your aggravations are legion, but every year you fool me again.