I woke up to rain, rattling, swirling against panes and roof--the first real rain we've had in months, and it's supposed to continue all day and night and into tomorrow. It is a beautiful sound, even better because I'm not driving north or south or east or west. I'm staying home, under my own lamp, beside my own fire.

Gradually sleep has been chipping away at the deep exhaustion. The little head cold hangs on, in a small way, but my body is finding its rhythms again: walking, working, lifting, balancing.

Last night I went out to write, and that, too, was a rest and a release--eating chicken soup with friends, then snatching words out of the air, another step toward regaining my lurching sturdiness, the unpredictable predictability that seems to be my natural habitat.

All week long Tom and I have been craning toward this weekend: "We'll be alone, we can do whatever we want . . . " I have no idea what reality will ensue, but the anticipation has been a tonic in itself.

In short, I am trudging through the border country that is convalescence. I am taking shelter, out of the rain.

Those metaphors look pompous and dumb, written down. Still, they feel true. There is a space between grief and no-grief--at times a broad and vacant DMZ, at others a narrow winding track among the hills. 

**

While I'm thinking of it, I should mention that I've got a new class posted in the Poetry Kitchen. The participants in the class I taught a couple of weeks ago asked me to run another revision weekend, and this is it. However, you don't need to have attended the first one to attend the second. As of this morning, there are only two spaces left. So if you're interested, sign up quickly.