For narrative consistency, I ought to attach this photo to yesterday's post. However, several of those pots of flowers are now sitting wetly in my driveway waiting to be planted, so perhaps politically-metaphorically the photo is more appropriate here. Will the daffodils and tulips of poetry return next year? Or will squirrels dig them up and eat them? 

It's Monday morning again. It seems to be Monday morning so often. The weekend rainstorm has rolled off into the North Atlantic, the puddles are drying up in the streets, and already the sky is blue-white above the fluffy maples. I have no editing projects sitting on my desk--not a scrap, not a pin. I've already prepped for my high schoolers, I've already prepped for next weekend's zoom class. I do have some conference planning to do, but nothing pressing, nothing urgent. The day opens before me. I don't know what it will bring.

I'm even at loose ends reading-wise. I finished The Wings of the Dove yesterday and am now making my way through the introduction. After that: who knows? Today is a clean-slate day.

I'll get laundry onto the line. I'll go for a long walk. I'll drink a cup of tea while sitting outside on a damp chair. I'll open my notebook and discover what I scrawled in Natalie's workshop. I'll embark on some sort of gardening project--maybe digging weeds out of the front walk and planting creeping thyme in the empty spaces; maybe turning over sod along the driveway and transplanting lilies into a new bed. I'll mess around with some of last week's poem drafts. I'll open windows. I'll scrape ashes out of the stove. I'll stir-fry marinated tofu and broccoli raab. I'll stare into the sky.

Tomorrow I'll be on the road again; Wednesday will be my final high school class of the season; Saturday I'll be in Zoom class all day; at any moment I expect another editing project to leap into my inbox. But today is a small bouquet of nothing-in-particular. I am so looking forward to it.