It is 5:30 a.m., and I am sitting in an Adirondack chair on the deck of my cabin, looking at the tail end of sunrise over Lake Hebron. Now a duck swims into view, paddles confidently up to the shore, and behold: she's got two ducklings trailing behind.

The three of them putter around for a few minutes before setting sail again, and I sip from my gargantuan coffee mug and feel happy to be wearing a sweater, which is not something I've said to myself for many days.

It is an old-fashioned summer morning, dew-drenched and still, the perfect temperature for bare feet and long sleeves. Birds twitter among the reeds and scrub . . . vireo, waxwing, warbler, sparrow. Bullfrogs remark. A duck flies low over the glassy water, and up on the road a log truck growls past.

This morning the conference will begin, and I'll be on stage all day. It will be intense, but I didn't sleep too badly last night, the faculty got lots done work-wise yesterday, and our participant group has already started to bond. All signs point to good cheer, though now a mosquito has found me. Suffering is life, and she understands her role in the cosmos.

In other news: someone has left a paperback copy of Harriet the Spy in this cabin. I am very pleased.