Yesterday was a long day. G picked me up at 6 a.m. dropped me off after 6 p.m. I had barely slept the night before, and when we weren't in the car, we were in class. Nonetheless, it was a good day. I love teaching with Gretchen; heck, I'd be happy not to teach at all and just be her student. She's so good at what she does. And it was exciting to create a class in which ideas about physical theater bumped up against ideas about form and structure in poems. The teachers who'd signed up for the class were eager and engaged, and I was excited about the possibility of a more expansive integration of our teaching styles and subject matter. Plus, just hanging out with G is very high on my list of fun things to do.

But, as I said, it was a long day. Rockland is two hours up the coast from Portland, I'd slept horribly the night before. By the time I walked through the kitchen door, I was dragging, and I hadn't even done the driving. But T had started dinner--sauteed mackerel, roasted potatoes, watermelon salad. He even washed the dishes afterward as I lolled on the couch. And I slept hard all night, which was a big relief.

We're forecast to get showers today, and already the air is dense with humidity. Now that the Rockland workshop is behind me, I can turn my entire teaching attention to the Monson conference. So today I'll go through my materials one more time, make sure I've got everything organized and printed out, make sure I've got all of my conversational cues more or less at the ready, check in with my faculty, check in with the Monson Arts staff, etc., etc. Directing a conference is a big job: one-third administration, two-thirds teaching, myriad unmathematical thirds listening, comforting, advising, performing, cheering on, improvising, and mopping up tears. I need all of my strength at the ready.

Now, outside the window, a cricket clicks among the draping lilies. The garden is beautiful . . . freshly weeded, well watered, lush with health. It doesn't need any work from me today. So I will wander through the rain. I will pick flowers and peas and hunt for mushrooms in the cemetery. I will put laundry into the dryer and I will clean the upstairs rooms. I will answer emails and read the stories of Louise Erdrich and make guacamole with cilantro and onion and hot peppers from the garden. I will listen to the gulls wail as they circle up from the cove. This is Maine, in the waning days of June, and the air is scented with salt and roses.