I fell asleep too early so I woke up too early, but sleep is sleep, I guess, even if the hours are weird. At about 3 a.m. the log trucks started roaring through, as they always do, and my bedroom fronts the main road, so rest was fitful after that. Still, the bed was comfortable, and I managed to linger dozily for a couple of hours until I finally had to admit that I was awake.

I suppose I should have tried to stay up longer last night, and I had every opportunity to do so as there was a big artists' dinner and hangout that was full of friendly, chatty people. But by 7:30 my introvert overload button started flashing red--time to leave, time to leave, time to leave. I haven't had much private time over the past several days, and I've got at least 10 days of public flurry ahead of me. My brain-body alert system clearly decided to take charge.

So here I am, restoratively alone, feet up on an apartment couch, wrapped in my familiar bathrobe, waiting for coffee to wind its way through the filter. Today the kids will be working with members of the Illustration Institute on an all-day project, so my teaching duties will be pretty light. Still, I'll need to be sociable, and that, apparently, is what my brain-body alert system was trying to reset yesterday evening. Let's hope it did.

The Illustration Institute residency is a good chance for our young visual artists and writers to come together to create work, so everyone on staff is pleased. I'm sure it will be an excellent day, as long as I can don this newly mended anti-hermit cloak. It'll need to stay intact for quite a while, what with visitors and rehearsals and travel and performances and and and.

Funny how a body just makes a decision sometimes. Quit. Enough. Go. 

 

It's 36 degrees outside, and a fire is catching in the wood stove. Chuckie is filled with breakfast, Tom is in bed nursing a cup of coffee, and I am deliberately celebrating these few minutes in front of the fire before I have to hoick myself forward into another travel day. This morning's docket: off to the Y for a class, and then home to make up the guest bed and tidy the back room so that it's ready for tomorrow evening, when one of my dear Harmony friends swoops briefly into town.

This month is crammed with event, but at least I've been able to make good use of the off days to resettle myself. Yesterday I did the housework and shopping and in the afternoon even made some progress on garden cleanup: tearing out frosted plants and, most importantly, digging up dahlia tubers for winter storage. Our yard is currently a construction site, stacked with materials and detritus, so clearing out the garden isn't helping anything aesthetically. Still, focusing on home stuff settles my mind. Somehow charging back out onto the road is easier when I know that the floors are mopped, the dahlias are safe for the winter, the woodboxes and kindling baskets are full and waiting.

I haven't forgotten the Sappho project, but it's had to take a backseat for a few days. I'm not exactly out of the zone, but I am out of time to be in the zone. During some quiet moments in Belfast I did add a couple of new drafts, but neither is finished yet. I'm beginning to feel that the poems are arcing toward an ending, though I don't know what that ending will be yet. Maybe I'll work on the project in Monson tonight, or maybe I won't. Usually I don't write well in the evenings. As this choppily written paragraph makes clear, I don't know what my brain will demand of me, or when. And there's no rush. The story simmers.

Home again, briefly, which means that today has to be rushing-around-with-chores day: weekly housework, groceries, catching up with emails; and if there's any time left over from all of that, I'll start tearing frosted plants out of the garden. Tomorrow I'll head north for an overnight in Monson, so I need to make the most of this drop-in visit to my own domain. I would love to also do a little bit of nothing much. It's hard to figure out how, though.

The Belfast jaunt went well: a packed reading on Saturday night and a full workshop the next morning. Apparently lots of people come to this festival from faraway places; I had poets from NYC and even Toronto in my workshop. I imagine that the midcoast's summer-house culture partly accounts for that, but still it seemed notable.

Meanwhile, Tom worked on his house project all weekend, and at the same time a huge roofing crew was replacing the neighbors' three roofs, so our corner of the world was saws and hammering and ropes and shouts and the roofers' kids playing with rakes in the grass and eating doughnuts in the back of the truck.

Now our front door sports fresh exterior trim and new wiring for lights and doorbell, and there's non-water-damaged plywood sheathing surrounding it, and before long we might even have siding and a storm door, and someday even a stoop. All hail the handyman.

A quick good morning from Belfast, Maine, because I don't have wifi here and I don't want to use too much phone data. But here are some Coast Guard boats and blue skies for you to enjoy until we meet again.

Coffee and a crackling fire and even a small sleep-in until Chuckie got fed up with that: it's nice to have a slow Saturday morning before the weekend busyness barges in.

This morning I've got various things to do, not least figuring out what poems to read tonight. And after lunch I'll drive up to the coast to the Belfast Poetry Festival, where I'll be appearing as the keynote poet (6:30 p.m. at the UU church) and then leading a generative workshop tomorrow morning (10 a.m. at the Rockweed Center). There may or may not be spaces left in the workshop; I'm not sure, but check that out if you're in the area and in the mood.

Yesterday turned out to be unexpectedly busy. The strength and balance class at the Y was good, and felt very useful, so now I need to figure out if I can afford to take it regularly. Then dance rehearsal was a reminder of rhythm and body attention. I spent hours away from words, after a week of word frenzy, and I think that may have been a good thing. I was still thinking about my poems; I talked about them with Gretchen; I wondered what they were and would become. But a little separation was tonic.

This morning I feel energetic and well rested, reasonably ready to cross the line from introverted obsessor to public poet. I'm still learning this new way of work, but I'm sort of getting there. I hope.

This morning I'll be up and out early--first, going over to the Y with some friends to try a strength and balance class, then driving up to Bowdoin to start rehearsing for the upcoming Monson, Maine, USA performances. Teresa won't fly in until the middle of next week, but the rest of us are going to try to get a head start on resurrecting the dances.

So it will be a busy-in-sweatpants kind of day and also a chance to wean myself from the Sappho project before I head up the coast for the poetry festival tomorrow. I've been lucky to have so many hours this week to devote to writing poems, but any further progress will have to leak in around the edges of obligation.

At last night's writing group I wrote a draft completely unrelated to the Sappho poems that nonetheless felt like it had potential. Apparently whatever is smoldering in my brain isn't limited to the one obsession but is branching into other themes and details as well. Maybe it will also filter through all of these upcoming performances and readings and workshops. It is nice to imagine that writing fluidly might lead to dancing fluidly, but I have my doubts.

Last night Tom stripped off the painters' tape and installed the door knob and the lock, a task that looks like it should take five minutes but actually takes much longer and requires considerable sighing and finagling. So (from inside the house) the door is now lovely, though in need of a good window washing. I look forward to today's sunshine.

So far it's a cool morning here in the little northern city by the sea, with temperatures forecast to hover in the 50s. A fire crackles in the stove. Chuckie blinks contentedly. The Dodgers are in danger of being swept by the Brewers. All in all, a good start to the day.

I've reached 32 pages in my Sappho project. I don't know where this story is coming from, but then I never know much when I'm in the midst. Writing hard makes me feel like the dumbest, happiest, most pig-headed person on the planet.

Today, hanging sheets on the line in the sun and wind. Baking a Turkish yogurt cake for my evening poetry' group. Maybe a noontime visit with a friend. A walk in the cemetery. And writing, and writing, and writing.

I promised you a sad photo, and here she is, poor little Alcott House, patched and scarred. Believe me, she looks a lot better than she did on Saturday afternoon, when she was a gaping maw. The new door kept out yesterday's wind and rain; and with floors mopped, windows washed, and wood stove alight, Chuck and I were snug.

After cleaning up construction dirt, I spent yesterday prepping for this weekend's workshop in Belfast, then running out midday to get my hair cut before capitulating again to the siren song of my Sappho project. Leek and potato soup for dinner, with anadama toast, a tomato and broccoli salad, and orange cake with blueberry sauce. Tom blessedly taking a night off and doing nothing much more than doze on the couch. Rain pattering in the darkness.

Meanwhile, the poems uncoil a universe.

Finally, at 8 p.m. last night, Tom settled the new door into place--and just in time, as it's supposed to rain all day. Much work remains to be done (maybe for tomorrow's post I'll take a photo for you of the outside of the house, which still looks grim), but at least the indoor side is more or less finished, except for new trim, which will be the last stage of this complicated repair project. Yesterday evening neighbors kept stopping by to sympathetically tsk. The hideous vision has been hard to overlook. The hole in the house was stupendously ugly, and, yes, much of the structure seems to have been held together by expanding foam rather than solid wood. It did kind of look like the entrance to hell.

But back to the new door. That's the old door you see sitting next to it, a windowless block. So with these three new pebbled panes, the atmosphere of our living room has changed dramatically. I'm eager to see how the additional sunlight will affect, among other things, my houseplants. 

Today, I've got to do yet another round of housecleaning, but so it goes with construction projects . . . vacuuming, mopping, wiping down the new windows. Amid yesterday's cleanup, I managed to finish an editing task while still keeping my nose to the grindstone with the Sappho poems. I hauled cans to the returnable center and dropped off my absentee ballot and pondered the variable outcomes of romance in Greek myths.

This weekend I'll be away at the Belfast Poetry Festival; then, starting next week, Monson, a houseguest, rehearsals at Bowdoin, performing at the Word Festival in Blue Hill, more rehearsals, performing at Mechanics' Hall in Portland . . . These few days I've spent cleaning up after construction and trying to do what I can to take care of exhausted Tom have been comparatively restful, and though Sappho has chosen to interfere, her timing has been good.

Twenty-nine pages of poems so far. What is going on here?

We're still doorless, though Tom worked all day till dusk, hoping he'd be able to install it. I'm not surprised the job's taking so long: he's been replacing not only the rotted sill but also sections of rotted beams and joists. At one point he was jacking up the house. So many secrets lie beneath the skin of a building, all of them eager to disintegrate when you're not paying attention.

Unfortunately he doesn't have today off from work, so I'm not sure when he'll return to the task. Maybe in the evenings, he says, if he can come home a little early. Or maybe we'll be in limbo till next weekend. 

Meanwhile, the rains have moved in. Knowing they were imminent, I, too, tried to catch up on a few outside chores, among them repotting a couple of root-bound houseplants. But I was still distracted by the Sappho project. Though I wrote only two more poems, I spent quite a while poring over the rest of the manuscript, not with a revisionary eye, simply trying to attend to my burgeoning characters and situations. I don't know how to write a novel, but surely, as with poems, it must be important not to excise material too soon. Whatever-this-is-I'm-writing is some sort of poem-story mashup, and I don't want to slice up the fabric before I even know what it looks like.

Since Friday I have written nine new poems for my Sappho project (and started a tenth). Of course this overflow is thrilling me: I am always all-of-a-shiver when I'm in the zone. All day long yesterday, between planting garlic and tulips and lugging plywood for Tom, between hanging up laundry and taking it down again, between stripping the last peppers and tomatoes from the plants and simmering and straining green salsa for the freezer, I was crouched over my laptop, writing, writing, writing.

The draft is now 25 pages long . . . I can hardly believe how fast this story is pouring out of me. I don't know where it will end up, but something big is happening. I love my characters and their time and place, and my schtick of having to account for every single word of the Sappho fragment in every single poem has turned out to be compositional gold.

Now, on this chilly Sunday morning, I sit alone in my darkened living room, watching flames lick at the kindling in the stove. Various deconstruction issues, mostly involving rot, slowed Tom down yesterday, so instead of a new door, a sheet of plywood is plugging the hole. Today, he assures me, the door will be installed . . . not that I'm nagging. I know all about the unavoidable delays of repair.

Without a real door, this room is drafty, and I'm not too willing to turn on the furnace so that it can blast expensive hot air into the front yard. So thank goodness for this doughty wood stove, and for this hot cup of coffee, and for this thick red bathrobe. And for the warmth of my nine new poems.

When I'm in the zone, I'm mostly dazed. I feel dumber than usual. The words arrive fast; I can barely keep up with them, but I'm not exactly thinking. Almost, my attention is shunted to one side. I see what's happening but I'm not quite part of what's happening. I suppose there's a dream analogy to be made, except that I'm not enmeshed in illogic. This is imagination at ferocious work, I guess. Story snatches the reins, and fingers humbly perform their secretarial role.

I have no idea how long this aura will last. Maybe the burst is over for the moment, or maybe I'll write nine more poems today. Whatever happens, I was lucky; I was showered with jewels . . . which isn't to say that what I made is precious. The glitter was the act of making.

It's 42 degrees outside on this Saturday morning, and a new fire crackles in the wood stove. Our furnace problem has been fixed, but why waste oil when my basement is crammed with construction scraps? Tom has lugged home so much pine-board slag from work that I've barely needed to touch the actual firewood yet. Though pine is not ideal for real winter cold, at this time of year it's just right for taking the edge off the chill.

And the house will be open to the elements today because T will be ripping out the front door frame. If all goes well, by the end of the day we will have a brand-new, freshly painted, not-ugly weathertight door and storm door in place, with a solid sill beneath them. Of course this does mean that the Big Kitten will have to spend a few hours locked in the basement so he can't escape through the gaping maw, but I think he'll survive, though he will have his doubts.

Yesterday I went back to a writing project I think I mentioned to you a while ago--a linked story-in-poems, with each poem containing every word from one particular Sappho fragment. I wrote four new pieces and then went back through the draft as a whole to tweak language and story elements. The poems are set in the wartime 1940s, in an unnamed, semi-mythical, American provincial city. And because they are constrained by Sappho's word choice, the characters, too, are semi-mythical: a pair of working-class adult sisters caring for, and being controlled by, difficult parents who are enmeshed in the machinations of the Greek pantheon.

This has been very enjoyable project, not least because I've been able to come and go with it--work on it for a few days, let it lie for a few weeks--without losing the narrative or emotional threads . . . which isn't to say that I know where the tale is going. The story unrolls like a ball of yarn, and I am following the string. It's 17 pages long so far, almost chapbook length, and maybe that's what it will end up becoming. Or maybe it will be even longer. I'll let the story figure that out for itself.

Otherwise: today I'll plant garlic and tulip bulbs, start tearing out garden detritus, hang sheets on the outside lines. This will be my last weekend at home for a while, so I'll try to make the most of it.

Yesterday's jaunt to Bates turned out to be so pleasant. I spent an hour or so with a first-year class, whose assignment was to bring questions to class to ask me. Clearly, as good students, they tried to choose questions that would make their teacher happy. They were, on the whole, quite reminiscent of the kids I spent time with last month in Jersey City: career overachievers who had honed their ability to ace school. I recognize them: I went to Haverford, which is the same sort of college as Bates . . . though I personally had some serious gaps in my ability to ace school.

But at one moment yesterday, a change rippled the atmosphere. I'd been talking about a poem of mine that the class had been assigned to read: "Play Clothes," from Calendar. And I said casually, "I bet you all have a piece of clothing you remember loving to wear when you were young." Slowly, one student after another began piping up: the Sponge Bob shirt, the shirt with pink ladybugs . . . and then what they'd been doing while wearing these clothes . . . hugging a chinchilla, shooting their brother with a water pistol . . . It was poetry in action, that moment: these students suddenly saw that the detritus of life, our physical memory, holds intense emotion . . . saw that leading with things rather than abstractions is a way to tap into the depths.

It was a beautiful slippage.

Just a quick note this morning as I am heading out very early for my Bates College class. But for a moment I am paused here on the couch, listening to vague rain pattering against the dark windows. I hear Chuckie lapping up his breakfast; I hear the halting drip of the bathroom shower head and the cooling teakettle clicking on the kitchen stove. So many small sounds overlapping--a sort of aural fidget, a peaceable friction. And upstairs Tom sighing in his bed.

Today is my birthday, and I am celebrating with a cup of coffee and a daybreak fire in the wood stove. Outside it's 38 degrees, our coldest morning since last spring, and our new furnace is on the blink (sigh: probably a sensor issue but it should be under warranty and the guy is coming to repair it tomorrow), so starting a fire is simple common sense. Still, even in the woods, our stove always felt like such rich luxury. Yes, it was hard work to keep it stoked. Yes, it demanded constant attention. But sitting in a dark room watching golden flames lick at the maple logs, the soothing crackle and pop of pine kindling, stretching my hands out to the sweet warmth . . . that routine never gets stale.

So I'm 62 years old today--waking up in this little shabby house, in this little city by the sea, on this cold October morning. The day is mine, except for an evening zoom reading. My plan is to get onto my exercise mat, which I haven't done all summer; to go for a walk and return a library book; to deal with laundry and emails; and then read and write for the rest of the day. Nothing spectacular: just a bumble around alone in my own dear space.

Yesterday after work, I walked into find a sweet homemade card from Tom and Chuckie. Then, when T got home from work, he took me out to a a tiny Japanese restaurant where we sat at the bar and ate one exquisite mouthful of seafood after another. Tonight I'll make my own dinner, but that's pleasure too.

Every year my birthday reminds me of how much I love this world, despite all. The clean blue of an October sky. Wind gusting through dry leaves. The hop-skip of a silly black cat. The smile of friends who are glad to see me. Tom's knee pressed against mine. It's all so simple. It's all so tangled. I'm so glad to be here.

When I arrived in the homeland yesterday afternoon, a chill wind was whipping through the trees, spinning bright leaves into gusts and eddies. All night long it roared. I woke and slept and woke and slept, soothed by its oceanic growl. Living in the woods is living among the noise of trees, and for more than two decades this creak and swirl was my soundscape. Even today nothing comforts my ear like wind in a forest.

In a few minutes I'll get up, get dressed, get coffee and toast. I'll lug my overnight stuff out into the new morning and head north to Monson and a day's work. Today will be my first full day with this year's high school cohort, and our focus will be language. What are these words? Where do they bring us? How can we follow them?

 

Sunday continued our all-consuming house-centered weekend. While Tom was hammering off the final vestiges of the brick stoop and scraping out the rotten sill under the door, I was mowing grass and picking cherry tomatoes and hanging clothes on the line and kneading anadama bread and slicing fruit for a pear and cranberry pie. Now the house is sporting the ugly plywood band-aid it will wear till next weekend, and the pantry is stocked with food for packed lunches, and we are both pulling ourselves together for our long work weeks.

This afternoon I'll head north to the homeland and spend the night in Wellington, then teach in Monson tomorrow and tumble back to Portland afterward so that T can escort me out for a birthday celebration a day early. Dinner isn't possible on my actual birthday because I'm taking part in a zoom reading that evening--a one-year celebration of Baron's passing. (I'm unclear if this reading is open to an audience; if it is, I'll share the link soon.) Then, at the crack of dawn on Thursday, I'll drive to Lewiston to visit a class at Bates, and probably I'll be doing something on Friday too; I just can't recall what.

The flurry of October has begun, but this morning I'm feeling energetic and focused, which is a good sign, I think. Plenty of sleep, plenty of physical activity, time with home things, visits with friends, and a poem draft on the burner: all of this is good medicine.

Well, the front stoop is gone, but what a job. Tom spent the entire day beating at bricks and concrete with hammers and pry bars. It was a beast of a chore, and now the driveway is stacked with rubble and the rotted sill glares out in full hideous evidence.

There wasn't much I could do to help, other than make lunch, tote rubble, and offer good cheer. So I caught up with herb processing: getting dried ones into jars, getting fresh ones into the freezer. I picked a final batch of Serrano peppers and strung them up to dry. I cleaned and prepped another batch of wild mushrooms. The freezer is pretty much at capacity now: I really ought to stop looking for mushrooms, but it's so hard to ignore the riches when I spot them.

Tomorrow afternoon I'll be heading north for an overnight before my Tuesday high school class. So today I'll deal with groceries and get a start on the weekly housework, though there's no point in trying to clean floors during an active construction project. I want to bake a pear and cranberry pie. I want to work on a poem draft. I want to help Tom in whatever way I can, though mostly I can't do anything except be friendly.

Still, when it comes to construction projects, good cheer and friendliness aren't nothing. The default is complain about the mess, complain about the noise, complain about boot dirt, not to mention complain about the cost. Carpenters take a lot of shit on the job. Meanwhile, what I am is thrilled that we're getting a new solid home improvement. Also, I really like this guy. I'll make a hot lunch for him anytime he wants one.

Our odd burst of summer has receded. This morning is chilly, and temperatures aren't forecast to get out of the low 60s. Good weather for working outside, which is exactly what Tom and I will be doing today. This morning he'll drive to the lumberyard pick up the new front door he ordered. And then he'll start tearing apart our front stoop, with me as his clumsy assistant. This will involve more than simply yanking apart old boards because the house's previous "handyman" made the idiot decision to cram a set of badly constructed plank stairs over a patched and crumbling set of brick ones. So T has two busted-up stoops to remove, and the condition of the brick one is as yet unknown. Will the bricks easily loosen and be salvageable? Or will he be beating at chunks of concrete with a big hammer? Stay tuned for the next thrilling installment of Stoop Wars.

Given these demolition issues, there's little chance of actually getting the new door installed this weekend, though T might find time to paint it. Still, I'm looking forward to the bustle. I love home repairs, despite the mess. Tom is such an extremely good carpenter: he is a pleasure to watch at work. And because he rarely has time to put his skills to use on our own place, every little project is very exciting. Our current front-door situation is terrible. The casing is warped and crooked and rotten. The storm door leaks rain. And the door itself is ugly and windowless. I can't wait for a fine tight new door that lets in daylight, not to mention having a stoop with evenly spaced steps and a functional railing. What luxury.

It's 65 degrees this morning, so strangely summery after a few evenings of wood fires and couch blankets. Out to dinner last night with a friend, we sat at a sidewalk table in the gloaming, marveling at the soft air. And now crickets are singing in the darkness and Chuckie perches happily beside the open screen door and I wonder if I might go back to wearing the sandals I thought I had put away for the season.

Yesterday I beetled among class plans and workshops plans, and then suddenly, after lunch, I had had enough. No more. My brain was done. I did a few house chores, I read my book, but desk work could take a hike. So it will be interesting to see what my brain decides to allow today. To be fair, it's gotten me quite far this week: all of that editing swept away, all of those classes prepped. Maybe it will soften and allow me to mess around with a few poems or my chapbook. Or maybe it will march me outside to work in the garden. Or maybe it will require me to drive to Mall Land and buy some sheets without holes in them. I await my orders.

I'm happy to report that yesterday I shoved the last of those three editing projects off my to-do list. I know another big job will show up shortly in my inbox, but that one will be far less time-sensitive: I can spoon it in around the edges of everything else, and there will be a lot of everything else in October. Two Monson, Maine, USA performances, long days of rehearsal at Bowdoin, the Belfast Poetry Festival, the Word Literary Festival, my Monson classes, a morning with Bates students . . . It's a packed month, and I feel squinty and overwhelmed just thinking about it.

But at least I am gradually getting my planning under control. The other big thing I accomplished yesterday was to finish the syllabus for the November Poetry Kitchen class on Grimms' fairy tales. So that is out of my hair, and today I can turn my thoughts to prepping for Tuesday's Monson session and pulling together the workshop I'll be leading in Belfast.

On top of everything else, I'm turning 62 next Wednesday, which also happens to be the first anniversary of Baron's death. I've always been emotional about my birthdays, those formal markers of waning time.  I love life, and I'm never gloomy about adding another year to my ticket. But loss does thicken, and autumn is always elegiac. It can't help itself. And so there's a poignancy to my looming birthday . . . a celebration and a sigh.

One more small editing project to finish today, and then I am out from under, at least for the moment. There are so many other tasks wailing at me and tugging at my skirt. I need to get ready for next week's Monson class, I need to finish prepping for my November Poetry Kitchen class, I need to return to planning the chapbook I'll be doing with the printer David Wolfe, I need to start reading the Berryman collection, I need to actually write poems again . . . 

But at least that giant editing project is off my desk. And I did get the housework done, and I did catch up on thinking-ahead grocery shopping so that the freezer is now stocked with protein basics that I can plan around as I'm coming and going. We don't have a big deep-freeze, just the small box freezer over the refrigerator. So my stock-up-ahead space is limited, and it's already bulging with tomato sauce, peaches, blueberries, chicken broth, sweet peppers, wild mushrooms, corn, chard, basil, parsley . . . But all of that will disappear quickly, once the garden shuts down for the season.

It's funny: for some people I know, the homestead urge--to save, store, squirrel away--doesn't intersect with any interest in actually cooking. Despite a freezer stuffed with produce, they're still mostly opening canned soup for dinner. The freezer boxes sit in perpetuity, with next summer's produce tossed on top of them. This is an odd disconnect, a weird version of hoarding, maybe. I've seen the same thing happen with firewood: the restless fear of running out of wood, so that every tiny branch is cut and stacked in every corner of the yard, where they slowly rot away under snow and time.

So often, the desire to save overshadows the desire to use. When we bought our house in Harmony, we found box after box stuffed into the crawl space over the shop, all filled with neatly cut strips of foam-based acoustic tiles of the sort that were popular in ugly schools in the 1970s--each strip maybe 10 inches long and 2 inches wide . . . completely useless for anything, but how long did it take to cut those scraps to size, to neatly fill those boxes, to lug them up a ladder and stack them tidily for "the future"?

It's still raining, lightly, lightly. What a gorgeous storm this has been--so long and slow. The grass has greened again, the plants have relaxed . . . and yesterday morning on my walk I found exactly what I had hoped to find: a huge gift of maitake mushrooms nestled among the roots of an oak tree.

Those are dishpans you're looking at, each one loaded with dripping-wet mushrooms--probably ten or fifteen pounds. And needless to say, with this many mushrooms to process, my plans for the day changed suddenly. I did finish the editing project, but I pushed all of the housework aside because dealing with this amount of treasure requires hours of slow washing, trimming, and then cooking. In the end four quarts went into the freezer, I roasted a bowlful for dinner, and we are in mushroom Eden around here. Maitakes are, as they say in the biz, choice. 

Yesterday a couple of my poems appeared in the new issue of the Maine Arts Journal, along with an introduction by my dear Betsy Sholl. Anything Betsy writes about my work makes me cry; her affection and approbation are among the sweetest things I know. As an apprentice poet in the woods I admired her so much from afar. Sometimes it is hard for me to believe that we really are friends now.

Today I'll catch up on the housework I shoved to the side yesterday and then turn my thoughts to finishing a second editing assignment. I ought to make appointments for Covid and flu shots, and I certainly should take a trip to the fish market to restock the freezer. Now that I'm on school time again, I need to reconfigure my meal planning accordingly. No more idle forays: when I come home late, the materials for dinner must be waiting for me.

But of course there's always the possibility I might find another giant cache of mushrooms on my walk . . .

It's been raining for close to 24 hours now and will likely continue for most of another 24. It's been a long time since we've had this much rain, and it's been perfect: no gale-force downpours and the rain falling slow enough so that the ground has a chance to absorb it.

I kept a little fire going all day yesterday, just for the pleasure of idling beside it. I did accomplish a few useful things, but mostly I nursed my cold, and this morning I do feel like I'm on the mend. It was never a very large cold, just a small first-day-of-school reminder, but still it left me slow-bodied and slow-witted. A rainy Sunday at home was a convalescent's dream.

This morning I'll be back to work: first, a walk and mushroom hunt in the rain; then weekly housework, a zoom meeting, and with luck I'll also manage to finish my editing project. Pan-roasted spicy chicken is on the docket for dinner, alongside fresh salsa and guacamole and buttered Swiss chard. I need to run a couple of errands. I'd like to work on a poem but likely won't have time. I'm finishing up Niall Williams's This Is Happiness and then I'll start on John Berryman's Dream Songs (my next reading project with Teresa) and Ruth Moore's A Walk down Main Street, about high school basketball in 1950s-era Maine.

***

One thing I did accomplish on my convalescent day was to send out the first fundraising letter for the Baron Wormser Scholarship for Teachers. Baron died last October--on my birthday--so now seemed like a good time to announce this initiative and to think again about how much he gave to the world. Here's the letter I sent out. If you can donate to the fund, I would be so grateful--

Announcing the Baron Wormser Scholarship for Teachers

Last October we lost our friend and mentor Baron Wormser to brain cancer. As the first anniversary of that loss approaches, I have been thinking again about the hole his absence has left. So many of us were changed by his writings, his teaching, his comradeship. He built a space for many people who might not otherwise have known we belonged to the poetry world. He helped us to find one another, and to find ourselves.

Perhaps Baron’s greatest public service was his devotion to teachers and to young people. When he founded the Conference on Poetry and Teaching at the Frost Place more than two decades ago, he threw out a lifeline to teachers who had been struggling to balance their own creative longings with their responsibility to their students as well as with the burdens of institutional requirements and increasing political pressure. The conference quickly attracted participants from around the United States and beyond. Though it began by focusing on K–12 educators, it was soon welcoming community college and university professors, MFA candidates, teaching artists, people working in social service and government positions, even poets with no institutional affiliation who were simply drawn to the collegial, democratic nature of the conference.

After Baron retired as director of the conference in 2012, I was honored to shoulder the work he’d begun. Now, after nearly a quarter-century at the Frost Place, it is thriving today as the Conference on Poetry and Learning, held each July at Monson Arts in central Maine.

In honor of Baron, I am announcing the establishment of the Baron Wormser Scholarship for Teachers, a full scholarship to the conference that will be awarded annually to a K–12 inservice teacher who could not otherwise afford to attend.

If you would like to honor Baron with a donation to this scholarship fund, I would be immensely grateful. Simply follow this link and scroll through the donation options until you find “Conference on Poetry and Learning (Baron Wormser Donation).”

Your support of the conference helps us continue the work that Baron began. He believed that poetry opened a window into the best of humanity. Our teachers and our young people are the future we must cherish.

In this half-lit hour, wet sidewalks glisten, and a steady breeze spins and rattles among the leaves. There's no rain falling at the moment, though the air is spongy with moisture. 

A Carolina wren bursts into voice. Teary, teary, teary. Teary, teary, teary . . . She repeats, repeats, repeats, then suddenly falls silent. A gust flutters the screen door.

Upstairs Chuck chirps at Tom, and Tom replies, Oh? In the strengthening daylight I note that the neighbors' driveway is pasted with soppy leaves, and now a next round of drizzle begin to tap at the panes.

Here's hoping for storm all day, pot of minestrone on the stove, cup of tea in hand, reading books by the fire, occasional check-ins on the Sox and the Bills games, nothing much, nothing important, a wet Sunday at home, Chuckie scrabbling noisily among the dining-room chair legs, a loaf of bread on the rise.

Saturday morning. Darkness still curls over the little northern city by the sea, and roofs, chimneys, maples are sharp-edged silhouettes against the sky's blue ink. So far, no rain or wind has made landfall, but surely the bay is thickening, whipping itself into foam and thunder, and the humid air is heavy with portent. 

I lit the wood stove yesterday, for the first time this season, and listened to the Sox beat the Cubs, and mashed potatoes and roasted broccoli, and turned on the lamps, and the soft weight of autumn evening settled onto house, garden, sidewalk, street.

Now Chuckie crunches his chow, and Tom sighs in his sleep. Day slowly pulls up the shades, and inky sky fades to pale cloud.

In a little while I'll go for my walk, I'll deal with laundry, I'll find something to wear, I'll gather together books, I'll climb into the car, I'll drive off to the north, I'll read poems. Meanwhile, the ocean will churn and gulls will flatten and veer in the wind.

There is nothing like a storm to make one's own doings feel small.

I just woke up from a dream in which I was trying to teach in a crowded classroom in Guilford, Maine, but the kids were playing music, joking, talking, completely ignoring me. Some administrator--the principal?--was in the room observing and appeared to be entirely unconcerned about my helpless state. It's a standard version of a teacher anxiety dream, but the timing is odd as I have just taught two different populations of kids (in New Jersey and in Monson) and didn't have trouble with either. Does my brain think I should be more scared than I am?

Yesterday I went for a walk, baked two apples pies, did the grocery shopping, edited a novel, endured a meeting, finished stacking our green firewood, went out to my poetry group, and wrote a funny poem draft that I'm pleased with--altogether a productive day. Today should be quieter. I'll be talking with Teresa this afternoon about Aurora Leigh, but otherwise I'll mostly be at my desk trying to make a dent in the editing project and attempting to remember what it feels like to be home.

The homey feeling will be brief as tomorrow I'll be on the road again, reading at Bailey Memorial Library, 1 p.m., in Winthrop. Terrible weather is forecast for the weekend, but Saturday looks like the less problematic day, so stop by if you're in the Augusta area. I'm thinking I might bring along that crown of sonnets again.

And then I really will be home, and for an entire week too. Such a novelty! My first plan is to thoroughly enjoy the oncoming nor'easter on Sunday . . . light a fire in the wood stove, bake bread and simmer minestrone, deal with herbs (pack up dried sage, thyme, and dill; process more parsley and basil for the freezer), maybe watch the Bills game if it's available on local TV, definitely fall asleep in front of the fire while rain whips at the windows. Doesn't that sound ideal?

We had a great first day of school at Monson Arts. This year's cohort is already eager to write, talk, and share, though most have known each other for only about 5 minutes. I've got two repeats from last session, the younger relative of a previous student, and, for the first time, an alum of the visual arts program who's decide to do the writing program this year. I've also got my first homeschooler, though V/A has had a few over the years. What I'm short of, so far, are boys (only one). But a couple of the schools had conflicts and couldn't send kids for the first day, so that may change.

On the way home Gretchen and I  took a side trip to North Star Orchards in Madison, my very favorite orchard on earth. I was a regular customer there, all the years we were in Harmony. They have extremely effective storage practices, so the fruit is fresh and firm late into the season, and the spot itself is just gorgeous--up on a rise that overlooks the western Maine mountains and down into New Hampshire's Presidentials. And to my great happiness, the owner remembered me clearly, asked after my boys, and altogether reminded me that my life in Harmony was real.

So I came home loaded with nostalgia and Tom's favorite apples (and also pears, a gift from the chef in Monson), which means that today I'll need to squeeze pie baking into the schedule. I have to edit, and I have to grocery-shop, and I have to meet with arts commission folks, and now I have to slice up apples and roll out dough. What I don't need to do is go away overnight any time soon. So much road stuff, so close together. I am very ready to be home. 

 Good morning from the homeland, where the trees are turning red and orange in a dry dusty way, and the lake shimmers in last light before dark, and the loon splashes and  wails. We lit a campfire by the water and sat out late. And then I went to bed and dreamed of my dead cat dying again, and of a crazy bus driver who needed to be overpowered before he crashed the bus, and of someone who kept referring to Marie Antoinette as Margaret Antoinette.

Tomorrow will be my first Monson Arts high school class of the season, which means that this afternoon I'll be heading north for my first overnight-in-the-homeland of the season. It will be fun: I'm driving up with Gretchen, who's going to lead an opening morning with the kids, and we'll spend the night by the lake, with all of its overtones of summer. So there's a bit of a party atmosphere in the air, despite the schoolishness. Also, I have my car back, thank goodness. We fetched T's truck from the garage yesterday afternoon, and now all I need to do is wipe a little sawdust off the Mazda seats and try to remember how the electronics work.

Yesterday was mostly laundry and housework, but I did meet with Teresa and Jeannie in the afternoon to talk about the strange and complicated writing prompt we've been playing with, which (as I think I mentioned last month) involves the visuals of part of an avant-garde music score by the composer Cornelius Caridew. I can't share that visual here because I'm sure it's copyrighted, but I'm hoping that one of these days we can figure out a way to share what we've been doing. Our own pages are also quite visually messy--Teresa in particular is struggling with how to show her work--and now we're also beginning to imagine soundscapes, so who knows what might happen. For now, it's an interesting bog.

This morning I'll go for my walk and then I'll slam out some editing before I start pulling myself together for departure after lunch. I brought the first loads of firewood up from the basement yesterday, so the living room suddenly looks different--smaller, snugger. No lit fires yet, but my match is at the ready. Still, fresh flowers flutter on the mantle; the kitchen counter is full of tomatoes; summer hasn't relinquished her grip. It's an odd season, this transition, this shimmy into the waning year.

***

On another subject entirely: Here's a link to an interview with me in the Third Fig Review, the newsletter of Millay House Rockland. 

We arrived home to a cold house last night. Apparently Maine transformed into full-fledged autumn while we were gone, which means that today I'd better bring up a load of firewood and the fire tools so I can be ready for this new world. As it was, we immediately caved to our unprepared state and turned on the furnace. Modern life has its allures.

I was insomniac in Brooklyn but fortunately collapsed into a dreamless coma as I soon as I returned to my own bed. However, the Monday-morning alarm was quite unwelcome. I could have stayed asleep a lot longer, if Chuckie had allowed it. But the Big Kitten is too thrilled to have us home again to allow us to stay asleep. So blearily I sit here writing to you, and blearily Tom drinks his coffee upstairs. The day demands our obedience.

In good news: Tom's truck is supposed to be ready for pick up today, so I should get my car back in time for the drive to Monson tomorrow. In bad news: We'll be slapped with yet another heart-stopping vehicle repair bill. In regular news: There's a lot of laundry in the basket, a lot of desk work in the coffers. The housework list is long, and the garden is wild. I've got a zoom meeting this afternoon, and I hope I don't fall asleep in the midst of it.

Yesterday was busy and lovely. We began the afternoon at the NYC Transit Museum, which is actually one of my favorite museums of all time. It's located in an unused subway station, and many of the exhibits are touchable and usable--turnstiles, ticket booths, and subway cars spanning the entire history of the network, which one can wander through and sit in. Then, midafternoon, we went to the buffalo stampede, an event I had struggled to imagine but that turned out to be one of the most interesting public art projects I've ever experienced. The giant puppets were amazing: the puppeteers were able to move and shift them in ways that really evoked the bodies of massive herd animals. Even when standing in place, they were always shifting and flickering, as large ruminants do; and the sight of forty of these puppets moving through a major city was poignant and beautiful. We walked the route with them, and with a huge crowd of other people--along the way stopping to listen to gospel singers on the steps of Borough Hall . . . among them Rhiannon Giddens, which was exciting. It was just a great afternoon, one that felt both impulsive and mysterious, and I was so glad to be there.

Temperatures cooled down enough last night for Steve to turn off the A/C, so now through the open bedroom window I listen to a single sparrow chirp, chirp, chirp like a slow metronome. The cicadas still hum, and beyond the animal voices I hear the far-off mutter of expressway traffic, closer roar of a truck, clipped whine and whoop of a cop car.

It was fun to meet Tom in town yesterday. I miss him so when I'm on the road, and it is nice to think that we can gradually work out ways to be together a little more often during my long travel stretches. This evening we'll be doing our parental duties--meeting up with our son's partner's family in Manhattan, going with them to a show--but the rest of our Saturday is open. So we've decided to check out this spectacle: a public art project in which 40 life-sized buffalo puppets stampede through downtown Brooklyn. I have high hopes that this will be strange and wonderful, but maybe it will just be a crowded mess. With a spectacle, one never knows.

It's muggy and dim this morning, and the cicadas in the apartment's handkerchief-sized backyard are operatic. The city is warmer than I thought it would be when I was home in autumnal Maine: summery and sticky, not a hint of chill in the air.

Thus far the visit has been relentlessly social, as I knew it would be. So I'm glad to be able to start off today slowly. I will meet Tom at the bus stop around 12:30, but till then the hours are my own. My plan is to get out of this bed whenever I happen to get out of it: shower, go find some coffee and a bagel, and then come back to the apartment and work on poems until I need to leave for Manhattan.

Yesterday's classes in Jersey City were fun--each an entirely different teaching experience, so that was great practice for me. The first was a largish AP Lit class, composed of the kinds of kids who usually sign up for such classes: a few serious literature lovers but mostly students who are pragmatic about its usefulness on college applications. These kids are primed for analysis, and I had only 50 minutes to surprise them into engaging as makers first, examiners second. So I dictated a Celan poem and gave them a writing prompt; then they read aloud a Sexton poem, and I gave them another prompt. After each writing prompt I then had them go back to the poem under discussion and engage with it . . . but asking them to make their own drafts between reading the model and talking about the model--creating a gap that belonged solely to them--felt very exciting. No one shared work. I did give them the opportunity but didn't expect them to take it. Not only was I new to them, but the class itself was unknown territory: they've only been in school for a couple of days. They have no trust-comfort yet, and I wasn't about to push them into that space. But I know they wrote, and I know they thought about what they wrote. I could see that in their eyes; I could hear it in their subsequent responses to the model poems; I could see that they were surprised.

The second class wasn't so much a class as a conversation with three serious student poets who wanted to share their work with me. Again, we only had 50 minutes, but we listened to work, reacted to it, talked about next steps, they asked me questions . . . They were eager and sweet and lovely to spend time with, and their work was strong and exciting.

This is a big urban high school, the city's academic magnet institution. These kids are all college-bound, many for Ivies and Little Ivies. I went to a Little Ivy myself, so I recognize the signs. No matter what worries lie below--about class status, racial discrimination, family situations--these kids understand that they are expected to succeed at a very high level. In that way they are entirely different from my central Mainers, yet young people everywhere are so dear, so obstinate, so open, such liars, such clowns, so fragile, so sturdy, so full of pulsing energy and lethargy. I am endlessly moved and frustrated and entertained by them.

On the train ride back to Brooklyn I was surrounded by a pack of middle school boys who accidentally clanked their water bottles on people's knees and spilled Chex Mix all over the place and had no idea where their feet were. My eyes filled; these children were so . . . themselves. I don't know why I am such a sucker for the awkward, idiotic charm of youth. But I do love it.

Good morning from Brooklyn, where I am getting ready to roust myself into my work day. So far the weather here has been cloudy and warm--not hot, but more summery than Maine has felt lately--and last night, when Steve, Paul, Lily, and I were walking through Gowanus, I found myself imagining what the place must have smelled like fifty years ago, a hundred years ago, two hundred years ago. The dense pong of urban life: it must have been almost intolerable. Sanitation is one of the great boons of the modern world.

In a few minutes I'll get into the shower, get dressed, get out the door--heading first over to Paul's for breakfast, then to Jersey City to teach. I'm a bit apprehensive about teaching, but then I always am. I know I'm decent at the job, but that doesn't mean I'm relaxed about it. Teaching is a performance, and a performance keys me up.

Greetings from the bus, which is still lingering at the terminal, waiting for one final straggler. It's quite underfilled--only a few of us heading to the city this morning. And now the door sighs shut, and now the driver buckles his seatbelt and the safety video intones and the lights dim and we are on our way.

The sky is gorgeous this morning: clear blue striped with dense yellow-gray cloud. It's a fine day for a voyage. We lucked out: a non-bumpy bus, which is not always the case. The movie appears to be about French cats.

I need to work this morning--I've got a poetry collection to copyedit and a couple of poem drafts to revise before I email them to my Poetry Lab compadres. I ought to think a little more about the classes I'll be teaching tomorrow. I spend so much time with rural kids that a dip back into the world of urban teenagers will be a useful lesson. And I daresay I will do something dumb, which is always instructive.

Otherwise, I've got a novel to entertain me (James McBride's Deacon King Kong, loaned by my friend Gretchen) and a ham-and-gorgonzola sandwich to enjoy and I am glad I decided to wear socks and sweater on this bus because it's chilly in here. Compared to last week's train odysseys, this 6-hour trip is a skip and a jump. I might even nap through the whole thing.

The bathrooms are clean, the floors are washed, the sheets are changed. Ugh, housework, the never-ending chore. But anyway I'm caught up for the moment, till next Monday anyway. Which means that today is desk- and yardwork day. On Thursday afternoon I'll be teaching a class for my friend Holly at a high school in Jersey City, so I need to keep prepping for that, and I hope to finish a batch of editing today as well. I should pull out the trimmer and deal with the straggly crabgrass; I should deadhead flowers. I ought to pack, and I should make a don't-forget list for Tom who will be holding my fort till Friday, and I need to figure out where I can store my suitcase temporarily while I'm cruising around Manhattan tomorrow afternoon. I have to learn how to get to the Morgan Library from Grand Central Station and estimate when I might arrive so I can meet Jeannie at the door. I need to remember to text Steve so we can converge in Brooklyn later in the afternoon. And no doubt I'll be peppered with texts all day from my son Paul, who is one of those mysterious kids who appears to love to hang out with his parents. Where are you? Where are you going? Wait for me.

A voyage to New York is always a social maelstrom, though at the same time I am constantly traveling through the city alone, trying to converge with this person or that person at this time or that. Subways and streets are a web of solitaries.

I have one job obligation--Thursday's jaunt to Jersey City--but otherwise this is a friends-and-family venture: the Morgan tomorrow with Jeannie to look at Ashbery drawings and Peter Hujar photographs; embracing Tom at the bus stop on Friday and then going to the Cloisters on Friday with him and Paul to look at the Bat Lord, a Zapotec clay sculpture made between 800 and 900, and the unicorn tapestries because we all adore them; then meeting our Lily's mother and stepfather on Saturday and going to Broadway with them to see Shmigadoon, which is not exactly our style of show but we are determined to have fun because NEW YORK and BROADWAY and BRIGHT LIGHTS and we love our Lily.

Visiting Chicago and New York City in the same week is a ridiculous schedule, but ridiculous schedule is my new middle name, and why not embrace it? 

Yesterday was kitchen day, as this photo attests. From left to right: pizza dough rising, a peach cobbler cooling, and five jars of peppers waiting to be labeled, then stowed on the pantry shelves. Not seen: three quarts of sliced frozen peaches, three quarts of diced frozen peppers. It was a giant undertaking, hogging up counters and stove so that Tom could barely find room to make breakfast for himself; featuring all of the household's biggest pots, pans, and colanders; requiring me to empty the compost pail three times before noon; and leaving me with a cramped right hand (peeling two bushels of peaches is not a restful task). But the end results were highly satisfying. Those canned peppers are the prettiest food I've made in quite a while, and they will be a delight this winter alongside roast chicken or pot-au-feu. And while  Maine peaches are the thin, sour cousins of those golden southern beauties, they still cook up handsomely. I may not want to eat them out of hand, but they will make a fine February cobbler.

Altogether this weekend was shockingly productive. On Saturday, before my reading, I even managed to vacuum my car . . . not that I'm driving it much at the moment. Mostly I cleaned it for reasons of wistfulness, and the possibly vain hope that my new vehicle won't devolve into a construction truck when I'm not looking. Loan a car to a carpenter and expect sawdust on the seats and boxes of screws on the floor. Sigh.

Now here we are, back at Monday again, and I need to do my weekly housework, work on my editing project, start prepping for next week's first Monson class. Early on Wednesday morning I'll leave for NYC: it's hard to believe I'll be on the road again so soon, but so goes my new life. I feel lucky to have had such a kitcheny Sunday. I feel lucky to have been able to read poems in the midst of this homestead whirl. I feel lucky to be visiting my two favorite sons in my two favorite cities. The breathlessness can be part of the pleasure, though sometimes I forget that.

At yesterday's reading I brought my crown of sonnets, "The Dead," into the air for the first time. Always, with poems, I hope that I've written something that can hold listeners' attention. But a long poem or sequence is particularly tricky. This has to do with more than maintaining audience focus over many pages. Performing a long poem has to draw those present into emotional communion. I'm struggling to describe what I mean, but when a long poem works in the air I have the sense that the room has become a fragile shell, that each listener is aware of the delicate walls, the currents of feeling, and that all are complicit in keeping this shell intact.

I think this happened with "The Dead" yesterday. And as a result I've been experiencing what usually ensues on such occasions--a postpartum exhaustion . . . not weary in body, but as if some inner reserve has been emptied and washed clean. A stripping-down of the spirit. Even all of these hours later my arms feel heavy, my thoughts slow. Reading those sonnets in public enacted a communal loss. Afterward, people needed to tell me about their own dead. In a way I felt like a sin-eater, responsible for that old ritual task common in Welsh and other Celtic cultures: reading the poem aloud was a way to absolve souls.

What fantastic sleeping weather! It was 49 degrees when I woke up today in the little northern city by the sea, such a treat for a slow Saturday morning. Chuckie finally nagged me into getting up at 6 a.m., but I could have wallowed longer.

Autumn is in the air and I am not sorry. Ah, wood stove, couch blankets, hot cups of tea, the beautiful creeping in of the evening. I love to be snug. Of course there are summer elegies--flowers, ripe tomatoes, bare feet, swimming in a warm pond. But the garden is tiring, and I am ready to let it fade.

Yesterday, after I finished up at my desk, I emptied most of the potted flowers onto the compost heap. It's so extremely dry here, and it's been impossible to keep up with the watering, given my road schedule. A few of the potted plants remain, but only the sturdiest. I also took down the backyard hammock and brought in the hummingbird feeder. It's time to accept that summer is on its way out.

Still, I've got so much harvest produce to deal with. This morning, before I head out for my reading, I'll grind down another batch of basil for the freezer, and maybe work on some parsley as well. I may even have time to string hot peppers . . . they're already washed and waiting; all I need to do is dig out my needle and thread. Tomorrow I'll can pickled peppers and chop up the rest for the freezer. And maybe those bags of peaches will also be ripe enough to process.

Meanwhile, I did draft a poem yesterday, and I started putting together a table of contents for the chapbook, and I copyedited 50 or so pages of a novel. I proposed a topic for a class I'm contracted to teach next month, and did some scheduling, and responded to various emails, and read Ruth Moore's Spoonhandle, which I'm enjoying a great deal.

This afternoon I'll be reading around the corner in Yarmouth. If you're local, and in the mood for words, stop by and give me a hug--

Finally I'm beginning to feel like myself, sleep-wise anyway.  Thus here I am, awake at the usual witching hour, considering the Friday ahead . . . recycling day, laundry day, dealing with piles of peppers and peaches day; but also I am going to write this morning. I accomplished almost nothing writing-wise during our Chicago trek, but I did take lots of notes and photos at the Art Institute's Thorne Miniature Room Collection, all focusing around one 1940s-era room, and I want to consider how those jottings might fit into my current writing projects--specifically the one that's linked to the Sappho annotations.

Still, the editing obligations are pressing, as are the vegetable and fruit jobs. One of T's co-workers has a peach tree and I, of course, am unable to say no to bounty. But the pepper situation is of my own making: I ordered them in bulk from the CSA because they were gorgeous and cheap and relatively easy to process for the freezer. I might pickle and can a batch as well, if I can find the time on Sunday.

Plus, I've got peppers in the garden to deal with: a crop of ripe Serranos that I should string up for drying. And so much basil, parsley, cilantro, and chard . . . wasn't this supposed to be a year of less work?

So, tonight: seared peppers for dinner, tossed with tofu, miso, scallions, lime, and cilantro. And today, poems.

Here's one of my photos of the tiny room . . . you may perceive it as a regular space, but it's in fact dollhouse-sized, like an exact miniature of a noir movie.

Sorry to be coming to you late this morning, but Tom set his alarm for the wrong time, and all three of us (including Chuckie) snoozed blithely on. Actually, I retract that apology. I'm not sorry to be coming to you late. Sleep is the temporary king of this household, and we are all eager to be ruled by him.

Meanwhile, rain fell overnight, and now yesterday's sweater temperatures have morphed into humid warmth and a brisk breeze is kicking up the dry leaves. A few minutes ago Tom managed to get out of the house and head to work--still in my car. We had bad news about his truck, of course. It needs a new rack-and-pinion, an expensive job that can't be tackled till the end of next week, so I still limp along carless. Blah.

Otherwise, I'm trying to return to some semblance of routine. I spent yesterday dealing with laundry, groceries, baking bread, answering emails, and today I'll turn my thoughts to the big editing project that dropped onto my desk while I was in Chicago. Next Wednesday I'll be hitting the road again--this time heading to Brooklyn for a few days--so I'll try to crank out as much editing as I can over the next few days. And then the following week I'll start my Monson Arts year. In between I've got weekend readings--one this Saturday, in Yarmouth; another coming up in Winthrop later in the month. I sure hope Tom's ride is fixed soon.

Yes, I'm alive and home and all is well except that I am extremely underslept. Consider this note a placeholder as I slowly consider the possibility of writing an actual post. Check in here a little later today to find out if I fell asleep face-first into my computer or if I managed to put together a couple of coherent sentences . . .

**

Tom and I left James's house at 8:15 on Monday night and unlocked the door of our own house just before 1 a.m. on Wednesday morning. I instantly fell asleep as soon as I climbed into bed and was 100 percent unconscious until 7 a.m., which is a late hour for me to rise but didn't add up to nearly enough rest to repair the previous two nights' train-trip insomnia and wedding-giddyness insomnia combined with time-zone lag. So pardon all grammatical-logical lapses in this post. I don't really know what it means to be conscious yet.

A few minutes ago I did get up and go downstairs and make coffee and empty the dishwasher. But then I brought the coffee back upstairs and climbed into bed again. So that's as far as I've gotten with my day. Tom has the more daunting task of getting his sick truck to the mechanic this morning. The mechanic is located conveniently around the corner, but the truck has no power-steering fluid, so effort will be expended. I'm glad not to be the one who has to expend it.

Though eventually I, too, will manage to exert myself. Piles of laundry await, as do the curiosities of an empty refrigerator. I need to fetch Chuckie home from the kennel. My email inbox is clogged with obligation. The garden is dry.

Meanwhile, wedding photos are starting to trickle in. Here are a couple more of my guys--James posing in the white suit, Paul playing flower girl.

And here's a little slice of my side of the family--left to right, my brother-in-law Kurt, my nephew Nick and his partner MC, my sister Heather, me clutching a beer can and looking wild-eyed, my son Paul and his partner Lily.

Just a quick note as the train's claim to wifi is symbolic only. I write to you from somewhere between Erie and Buffalo. The sun is glaring into the train's dirty windows, the school buses are stopped safely at the railway crossings, the cafe car is open and serving hot n' tasteless coffee, all of my children are tired and happy, and tomorrow I will muse here about the similarities between camping and an overnight train ride in coach. 

The pride of my heart, all here.

 

 

Yesterday mostly circled around the barbecue party at J and H's house--40 or so people eating and hanging out all afternoon, with our little cohort trying to be as helpful as we could with setup and cleanup and friendliness. Now, on wedding-day morning, all of the family members staying in this hotel are going on a boat tour before beginning the slide toward the evening's formalities. I woke up feeling nervous, which I daresay will not lessen as the day advances. I'll be reading during the ceremony--not my own poems, of course; but still I have to perform, and not cry while reading, and right now that seems hard.

After collapsing into our room's exceedingly comfortable bed, we both woke up yesterday morning feeling much refreshed. Tom found us a place nearby for breakfast, where we ate eggs Benedict and pondered the oddness of living downtown. I've never before spent much time in this part of the city. I always think of Chicago as its neighborhoods--low-slung prewar brick, alleys and taco stands and old warehouses.  But here we are surrounded by steel and glass and Armani stores.

After breakfast we went swimming, and I have to say: this hotel has the fanciest pool ever. It's on the 12th floor, which in itself seems amazing to me--a massive vaulted tiled space, water and air the perfect temperature, and I plan to dawdle here every day. (Full disclosure: using the word swim for what I do in the water greatly exaggerates my abilities. I float, and sometimes wave my arms around and kick a little.)

The wedding rehearsal was at noon, and I am proud to say that I figured out how to get there by bus. I am pretty good at navigating subway systems but always a little daunted by city buses. For some reason Tom and I have been walking in the wrong direction constantly since we've been here. One of us is as bad as the other, so managing the bus felt particularly victorious.

The wedding venue is quite hilarious but also sweet. It's in an old furniture store, so the place is packed with oddities. Outside is a funky overgrown garden where the wedding proper will take place, and inside there's a huge open room, big enough for tables and dance floor, and the 200 vases of flowers that I, along with Hannah's mom and aunt, spent the afternoon filling. That was a massive job, but the room will be lovely with so many blossoms and I'm excited to see it in its overwrought glory.

The day ended back at the hotel, where I found Tom showering off his sweaty afternoon, which he'd spent at James's house prepping for today's welcome party. Once he was clean we walked down the street to a Peruvian place . . . ah, Friday night in downtown Chicago, the young women dressed to the nines and their dates wearing nothing special . . . thick midwest summer air clogging the evening like a blanket . . . 

 Yesterday was so long. Our train ended up being six and a half hours late . . . not just because of the tree damage I told you about yesterday but because there was someone on the track in Indiana, so we had to wait quite a long time for cops to remove him. Unclear if he was in a vehicle or tying himself to the tracks or what, but something was going on.

We finally stepped out of Union Station and into Chicago at 5 p.m., and began our long schlepp to the hotel in 90 degree heat. And then, after unpacking and a quick shower, we headed out for dinner with James. Turns out I was almost too tired to eat, though I hadn't had a real meal for 24 hours, and Tom and I had both stiffened up after the long train ride and were hobbling around like witches. So J kindly drove us back to the hotel, where we collapsed into an exquisitely comfortable bed in front of a Mariners-Athletics game and both slept like rocks.

And now here I am, feeling much refreshed. Tom is currently messing around with the in-room coffee maker, and my younger son Paul is texting me from LaGuardia, and I believe that I have returned to being the kind of person who can hike all around Chicago and stay on my feet all day doing helpful errands for anyone who needs me. I guess we'll find soon out if that's true or not. . . .

Yesterday I said I would greet you this morning from Ohio. That is not the case. At some point overnight the train came to a halt, and now here we are, stopped east of Erie, Pennsylvania, because apparently a big storm dropped trees on the track ahead. The automated text to Tom's phone offers no clue about how long any of this will take. But safe to say, we won't arrive in Chicago anywhere close to on time.

Otherwise, though, the trip has been enjoyable, if drowsy. I've been reading back and forth between the Whitehead and the Penny novels, but I haven't done a lick of writing. Some of the blame has to be chalked up to the Dramamine I took for the bus ride, which sometimes makes me sleepy. But the rattle and roll of a moving train is a soporific in itself--though, at the same time, there's no way to get a solid night's sleep when you're sitting upright in a seat surrounded by people who won't stop talking on their phones.

So I guess that's about it for an update. It's too dark to see out the window. The cafe car isn't open for coffee yet. Somewhere ahead of us people are supposedly chainsawing trees off the track. I believe I'll go back to reading.

It's 5 a.m. in the little northern city by the sea, and a single cricket squeaks in the darkness. The air sifting through the windows is cool and crisp, and for the moment I am happy to be drinking hot coffee and wearing my old red bathrobe. But I have packed for heat. Temperatures in Chicago are supposed to be in the high 80s and 90s all week, with thunderstorms possible most afternoons. I expect to be sweaty and wilting, but at least summer clothes pack tighter than winter clothes do; and without any space-hogging sweaters and boots, I have room to stuff in a few extra clean shirts.

In a couple of hours our friend will arrive to haul us to the bus station, and the wedding adventure will begin: an hour-and-a-half ride to Boston's South Station and then, just after midday, we'll board the Lakeshore Limited and embark on our 22-hour ride to the Windy City. Tom is going to take advantage of the hiatus between bus arrival and train departure to hustle over to Chinatown and pick up takeout for lunch and dinner. It's always good to have fun things to eat on a long train trip.

I did end up acquiring a copy of Whitehead's Crook Manifesto, thanks to the altruistic generosity of my local bookstore owner. She called yesterday morning to say her distributor couldn't get the book to her before I was leaving, so she had checked with other bookstores in town and had tracked down one that had the book on the shelf. This is above-and-beyond service, don't you think? Librarians and booksellers: they are the greatest.

So now I have my four carefully chosen books, a travel cribbage board and a pack of cards, two poem-writing projects, a little notebook for writing down overheard conversations, a few shows to watch on my computer, a late afternoon Red Sox game to listen to, a friendly guy to cuddle up against, some salty snacks, a chocolate bar, a bag of as-yet unchosen Asian takeout, the prospect of a late-day beer from the cafe car, a pillow, a blanket, my toothbrush, the rattle of the rails . . . 

Tomorrow morning I will write to you from Ohio.

Today is departure eve, otherwise known as Don't Forget to Charge the Headphones I Hardly Ever Use Day and Will the Book I Ordered Be In Day and (sob) Chuckie Has to Go to the Cat Kennel Day. I hate parting with my darling Big Kitten, but he doesn't have the moxie to stay alone in the house for a week. So T will work a short day and come home for lunch, and then I will load up the Chuckster and drive him away to his motel.

Fingers crossed: things seem to have settled down in Vermont, and as of last night my sister was still planning to come to the wedding, which is a great relief to me. Nothing is easy here: she's got to figure out how to best get through O'Hare with a broken ankle, but she's eager for the party, and I am eager to hug her.

It looks like we might get some rain this afternoon, which is a very good thing. So I'll go for my walk this morning and then turn my thoughts to laundry and a few desk tasks--which will include choosing which two Grimm tales I want to focus on in my November Poetry Kitchen class. Over the past couple of months I've been steadily making my way through the tome of stories, taking notes on possibilities but not coming to conclusions. The time has come for me to pin down a pair so that when I return from Chicago I can jump straight into designing the class.

Who knew sitting on the couch reading fairy tales could count as work?

Monday morning of wedding week also happens to be the first day of school in Portland, so I expect to witness scads of shiny new sneakers and backpacks this morning when I'm out on my walk. Stevens Avenue, the main drag in this neighborhood, is home to Longfellow Elementary, Lincoln Middle School, and Deering High, all sited within a quarter mile of one another. So kids throng thick and fast around here on a school day.

Tom and I spent much of yesterday communally packing, and we did eventually manage to fit everything into our luggage, though not always in the places we'd envisioned. Tom's dress shoes are now tucked into my suitcase, and my wedding gift is sandwiched in Tom's garment bag, but they're packed, and that's what matters. Meanwhile, all day long, we were also anxious: my dad had a sudden health crisis, and it seemed possible that my sister and her husband might not be able to leave my parents to come to the wedding. As of last night, things seem to have settled down, but life in Vermont is perpetually dicey.

Today I'll deal with my regular Monday chores: clean bathrooms, wash floors, water the garden, catch up on desk work. If I have time I might freeze a batch of chard or process some basil or parsley, but if I don't get to that stuff, fine. This is why I have a small garden this year: so I don't need to fret over any of it.

I've been working on some poem revisions, and I've also got a writing project reserved for the train--a Poetry Lab idea involving a written musical phrase that Teresa, Jeannie, and I have broken into three sections. Each of us will take one part and use it as a prompt in some way. Because my section resembles train tracks, I thought I would use the sounds and sights of the train trip as part of my material. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens.

Meanwhile, Tom will have the window seat and a gorgeous new-to-him camera to play with, so the two of us will be contentedly preoccupied.

You see that I am trying to stay happy and forward-thinking. But I am worried about my fragile parents, and about my sister who (if she's able to leave) will be traveling with a broken ankle. Optimism can be hard work.

Another cool morning, though if it's like yesterday temperatures will heat up quickly. Still, for the moment I'm enjoying the coziness of a bathrobe and hot coffee. Although my hair loves humidity, the rest of me is not too sorry that autumn is on the way.

Outside a catbird is squawking, a plane is taking off, but otherwise it is blessedly quiet, for a change. We've had a crew of wacko tree guys in the neighborhood for the past couple of days. They did not exude competence for all kinds of reasons--including the fact that they preferred to chainsaw in the dark and didn't really know how to back up their trailers. However, they must be dirt cheap because they kept moving from one yard to another, apparently with homeowner approval, though I don't think they knew a thing about trees other than Cut them down! and they exuded the ambience of bleary-eyed denizens of the VFW. Anyway, here's hoping they are finally gone.

I cleared out some flowerbeds and did some weeding yesterday but, more importantly, I finally got my compost bins emptied and the big pile turned before the leaves begin to fall in earnest. It wasn't a huge job but it was heavy and hot and dirty, and I'm glad to have it out of my hair. Last weekend, firewood; this weekend, compost--all so I can focus on next weekend: wedding. To the dulcet strains of a Red Sox-Yankees doubleheader, I spent much of the rest of the day making a giant, complicated, cross-checked list of everything I need to bring to Chicago, which is way, way too much stuff. Fortunately, several years ago I decided to buy both a purse and a backpack that are slightly too small, and you'd be amazed at how much that's helped me manage what I pack. At least it amazes my kids. When I told Paul I was bringing only four books on this trip, he was shocked. He'd guessed at least six.

Today I'll haul out the trimmer and deal with the grass, such as it is, and I'll do the grocery shopping while I still have my car available. And I'll figure out something or other for dinner. Last night I made a beautiful ratatouille--summer squash, colorful peppers, heirloom tomatoes, eggplant, sweet onion, freshly cured garlic, fistfuls of basil. We ate it alongside steamed mixed grains; local cantalope tossed with agave nectar, rice vinegar, and fresh mint; and, of all things, Salisbury steak. If you think of Salisbury steak as TV dinner fodder, think again. The homemade version--tender meat patties simmered in mushroom gravy--is entirely delicious and, for two people who are juggling leftovers, it's a more manageable version of meatloaf. I happened to make these with ground beef, but they'd be good with ground chicken or turkey as well.

I'm enjoying a slow start today: a treat, given my usual early-morning extremes. It's already full daylight outside. Goldfinches are chirping among the bachelors' buttons, and an angry squirrel is sputtering why you oughta, no doubt a walnut-related tiff with another squirrel. That walnut tree does not promote neighborhood harmony. The local squirrels spend all day every day being furious with each other over who's eating a walnut, who took the other's walnut: gripe, gripe, gripe from dawn till dusk. They'll have a lot of fences to mend once the season is over.

I did manage to get to my haircut appointment yesterday, thanks to my neighbor's car, and I also messed around with poem revision and even, to my surprise, submitted a few pieces to a journal. I don't know what came over me: usually I'll scrub toilets rather than submit poems. But now I need to turn my thoughts to yard work and errand running, and no doubt I'll be juggling phone calls and emails about wedding stuff and wrestling with the impossibilities of packing and trying to remember to do dull things like get the mail held.

Anyway, for the moment, I'm not doing anything other than write to you, which is restful. One large issue about this long trip is the question of how many books do I bring? We've got two 20-hour train rides to fill, which I calculate as requiring at least four books. They need to be paperbacks, for reasons of weight and space, and they must be the sort of books one can enjoy in distracting circumstances: thus, no Henry James or Moby-Dick.

The idea is to pair two paperbacks for each leg of the trip. Plus, I've got a writing project I'll be working on, some shows to watch, probably some baseball games to listen to. Tom and I will play cards and eat snacks. Possibly we'll even sleep a little. But the book choice is central.

Thus, last week I ordered Colson Whitehead's Crook's Manifesto from the bookstore (though now  I'm starting to worry that it won't come in on time). I felt it would offer the correct level of enjoyment for a train trip: familiar likable characters in a situation I haven't yet read about, in a landscape I enjoy; some snappy prose and a little suspense along the way. But I needed three more books, so I went to the library yesterday morning to see what paperback novels might be available. My library branch is very small so I knew the choices would be limited. On the other hand, my criteria were simple: I haven't read it before; the quality of the prose won't drive me to drink; the book will immerse me in a place and a situation that I find interesting in some way. 

This is what I came home with:

Ruth Moore's Spoonhandle (1946): Moore grew up on Gotts Island, a fishing community off Southwest Harbor, Maine, and became a fine regional novelist. This is her second book, set in the Depression, and dealing with locals versus summer people. I know the landscape well because this is where T and I go twice a year when we stay on Mount Desert Island at our friend's cottage. Downside: slightly too fat for backpack comfort. Plus side: Moore is a good prose stylist, and knows how to dispense irony.

Annie Ernaux's A Man's Place (1983): Ernaux won the Nobel a couple of years ago, but thus far I've only read one of her books, which was about big-box stores in contemporary France. This one is older: a memoir about her father, born into a laboring family who, according to the back cover, made "a slow ascent toward material comfort" while remaining difficult and distant with his wife and children. Plus-and-minus: very thin, so ideal for a backpack but not for enduring entertainment. Also, I didn't adore the book of hers I read before, though I do think about it often, so I am willing to try again. And I like learning about France.

Louise Penny's The Cruelest Month (2007): You already know who Louise Penny is, but I've only read one of her mysteries before. However, I did read it on vacation, so I can attest that it held up very well during a week of cold wet weather in a drafty cottage, a week punctuated by three naps per day and too much red wine with dinner. Like most of her procedurals, this one is set in Quebec, and I recall enjoying the immersion in its landscape and its French-English cultural push-pull. Also, the characters were various and easy to tell apart and I didn't instantly figure out the ending, so that was entertaining. Downsides: Slightly cringy prose style that may force me to exclaim "Why aren't you John Le Carre?" Also this copy is kind of beat up. Can it endure an overstuffed backpack?