Yesterday turned out to be productive. I got through my exercise class and finished an editing project in the morning, did some class scheduling for an upcoming Frost Place session, worked with my student poet in the afternoon, decided to make risotto instead of roasting a chicken . . . I felt just like a person with things to do.

Today will be more of the same--exercise class, editing, Frost Place stuff, pulling together homework materials for my student--but this time I hope I can also carve out space to go for a walk. Rain is in the forecast, and I like a walk in the rain.

I've been reading Mavis Gallant's stories, and they are very moving and precise. They remind me, in a way, of Elizabeth Bowen's--not in their language but in their uncanny comprehension of the minds of very young women.

And I've been pecking away at a poem revision: inserting a word, taking it out, putting it back in, taking it out. I can't get comfortable with this draft. Something is too much or not enough. I'm on the edge of figuring out the problem, but I can't quite see, not quite yet.