Had a good, productive class yesterday, then a staff meeting about how we'll organize the remaining Monson sessions, and eventually I made it home, late but still in daylight, which feels like such a treat. Really, the only thing that went wrong was that somehow, I have no idea how or when, I yanked a muscle on one side of my lower back, and now I feel like I'm 102, wincing and groaning as I creep through the house.

Well, I expect it will improve . . . not stiffening up in the car for two and half hours will surely help, and T massaged it out a couple of times yesterday evening, which also seemed to improve things. A slow walk and some Tylenol, and perhaps soon I will feel like I'm 95 or even 87.

Otherwise today I'll be back at my desk, with hopes of making big progress on the editing project. And unless I'm not ambulatory I hope to go out to write tonight. I haven't been to my writing group for weeks, and I've really missed it.

One thing I need to do is return my attention to my new manuscript. While the kids were working yesterday, I pulled up the file and spent some time staring at it--accomplishing nothing other than relearning what I'd made, but that in itself seemed important. A manuscript is a private life that tentatively reaches toward a public one. It is an odd transitional object--not a book yet, though it hopes and worries. Still, it has separated itself from me . . . it has stepped forward into a new space. I read it and wonder what these once-familiar words have become.