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?

Another heavy, sticky morning, but as far as I can tell, no rain fell overnight. Our drought goes on and on. 

And this household is back in vehicle limbo for the foreseeable future. Tom can't get anyone to look at his truck's power steering till after we return from Chicago, so once again I am carless. I know I shouldn't be grouchy about this, but I am a little. I've already spent too much of this summer borrowing other people's cars and begging for rides, and I hate having to start all over again. But Tom needs to take my car to work, so I am stuck.

Thus, today I'll be driving my generous neighbor's car across town so I can get my hair cut. Under normal circumstances I might just cancel the appointment, but that's not really an option on wedding-countdown week.

Otherwise, the day is fairly open. I'm working on a poem draft as well as web copy for next summer's conference. I'm rereading Byatt's Whistling Woman. I may start sussing out my November Poetry Kitchen class or the workshop I'll be leading at the Belfast Poetry Festival in October. I've got a couple of smaller appearances to prep for: a morning at a Jersey City high school in September, a morning in a Bates College class in October. And my Monson Arts high school classes begin in late September.

Yesterday I met with my friend Gibson, who's the executive director of the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. He wanted to talk about how the organization can support me--specifically, through grant writing and promotion and helping to set up programming around the state. It was a really helpful conversation. Of course I need all the aid I can get with that sort of administrative work. But it was also good just to talk to a knowledgeable friend about the odd discomforts of the position: its amorphous expectations, its political undertow. I have a fairly clear idea about who I am as a poet in private life. But the public role remains mysterious.

What he made clear was that I need to do what I already know how to do: work with kids and teachers, work with community members . . . but also read books and write poems and continue being a striving, active maker. I already knew this internally, but it was good to hear it from someone else. A lot of people have a lot of ideas about what I should be doing, and I haven't always been able to align them with my actual capacities. Imposter syndrome is incurable. But it is possible to stop paying attention to it.

Last night's dreams have left a blur of sadness. They weren't scary; more, poignant, elegiac. But suddenly what arises most vividly is a bright bowl of freshly harvested, high-bush cranberries sitting on a table in front of me, and my hands in them, cleaning out stalks and stems. The jewel red of the berries, the pallor of my hands. I wasn't the main character of these dreams, more like a Nick Carraway kind of observer. Other family members came and went, ages all mismatched, old ones young, young ones aging, and the place was the Pennsylvania farm, setting of my summer childhood, but I was only a watcher, cleaning cranberries at a kitchen table, though the fruit has no real-life association with that place. Dreams are so very odd.

Yesterday ended up being a mishmash of errands as I spent way too much time driving around mall land trying to track down a few small items for next week's adventure. But wasting hours in South Portland turned out to be the right choice because, as T was pulling out of our parking space after last night's movie outing, the power steering in his truck suddenly died. He did manage to get us home, but not easily, which means that Gloria the shiny Mazda is going to have to take over as construction vehicle for the next few days. The timing isn't terrible as I'm not on the road for work until after we get back from Chicago. But I do have to figure out how I'm going to get across town for my haircut tomorrow. I guess I'll think of something.

Today I have two afternoon meetings scheduled, but the morning will be quiet. Maybe I'll look at notebook blurts or start drafting web copy for next summer's conference. I could start putting together class plans, but I don't think I'll worry about that quite yet. Maybe I'll work in the garden, if the sun's not too hot.

I'm unsure, undecided, unmoored. I don't know what I want for the hours or what will happen. It's not a bad state to be in. Maybe the dreams are still dreaming. Outside, a flock of gulls spirals overhead, screeching, complaining. Inside, Young Chuck paddles a paw in his chow dish. Upstairs, T sighs. The bed creaks as he turns onto his side. The small sounds of home life, layering against dream life, the private, inscrutable country of ghosts.

This morning I'm feeling sad about Dolly Parton's death, yet what a good life . . . a model for how to nurture both the self and generosity of spirit. I was a child in 1970s Appalachia, so I have a fish-eye awareness of the details of the world she sang about, and dramatized, and embodied, and performed. How does one portray trashy with love, not with condescension or self-loathing? I use the term here because my own family wrestled with it directly, veering between comic embrace and shame. I remember, after first meeting my dear friend Ray, he asked me if my relatives were trashy. He himself was from Appalachian Kentucky: for him, the term was a secret handshake. We would know something precious and vulnerable about one another if we faced it.

Dolly figured this all out. And how to laugh and be deeply serious at the same time. How to celebrate but not sugarcoat a heritage. How to change her tune when change was necessary. I am honored to have shared the planet with her.

**

Yesterday's school thing at Merrill Auditorium seemed to go well enough . . . at least, the listeners laughed and sighed in the right places, so I'm hoping the poem got across okay. It was very odd to read to such a massive audience. I couldn't help but recall my own entree into the world of Maine education: as a long-term substitute music teacher for 90 kids in a K-8 school in rural Somerset County--a far cry from 1,500 staff members across multiple sites in the biggest city in the state. Of course, in the grand scheme of city schools, the Portland system is tiny, not a patch on New York City or Chicago. But I daresay my Monson high schoolers would have been flummoxed at the sight of so many faces. The difference between our rural schools and our urban schools is vast. 

After I got home, I did manage to finish and ship that editing project. So today I'll be catching up on some smaller desk tasks, running a few errands, maybe weeding a flowerbed, maybe working on a poem draft. Tonight T and I will go out to watch an old Robert Mitchum noir called Out of the Past. It's nice to have a looser day ahead, a clear-ish desk, an evening to anticipate.

It's a touch cooler and less humid this morning than it has been. A breath of autumn sifts through the screens, and the wren's tea kettle tea kettle tea kettle is a little more subdued. One ripe walnut, then another, clonks down from the neighbors' tree, a sign that as soon as night lifts the local squirrels will hurl themselves back into harvest hysteria.

This morning I've got my big school event to get through, and afterward maybe I'll manage to finish the editing project--if not today, then certainly tomorrow. Given that it's a 500-pager, I'm relieved I've been able to plow through it so steadily. But it needs to be off my desk, and soon.

Suddenly the neighborhood falls silent, the only sound the bare murmur of the highway in the distance. Even the wren is mute, even the crickets. But now a cardinal speaks--cheer, cheer, chip chip chip--a cricket responds, in the half-dark a squirrel scuttles toward the walnut tree, and the day resumes.

I'm thinking about today's big event but I'm not feeling too nervous. Schools don't tend to make me anxious, though government events apparently do. I more or less know where I am with teachers, even when they're crabby. And surely a tale about a hapless middle school basketball team will lift a few spirits. That's my intent, anyway. To tell a good story. To help them forget to be scared by poems.

Night-morning, soft, black, damp. All windows open; air waves dense with cicadas and crickets. Above their thick racket a single whistling cardinal: Cheer, cheer, cheer, cheer. 

But already the black is moderating to gray. The neighbors' pale house looms. Sky flickers among branches. The cardinal falls silent as the insects drone on.

This will be a packed week: the big Portland Public Schools event tomorrow; meetings on Thursday; and all the while cranking away at that editing project; catching up on harvest stuff; undertaking the frivolous chores of wedding prep, like making sure I get my hair cut.

And Monday, as usual, is housework day--wrestling with bathrooms and floors, then buckling down to desk work, though I am going to take a break for a midmorning walk with a friend.

Yesterday I dealt with grass and watering; harvested another bushel of chard; baked a plum cake. I've still got my herb crops to work on this week: I need to freeze basil and parsley, cut sage for air-drying, pack up the already-dry oregano and thyme. Thank goodness I didn't plant a real vegetable garden this year. I would be insane right now, and I'm already a little bit crazed as it is.

We got a spit of rain yesterday afternoon, but nothing that counts as real moisture. We might get a few more drops today but they won't be the deep, days-long rain we need. Drought is settling in, and it's disheartening.

Still, without rain I was able to finish the firewood job yesterday. I trundled the rest of the seasoned logs from shed to basement hatch, tossed them in, then stacked everything, organized kindling, swept the bark mess up from the floor, and now chilly nights can arrive whenever they feel like it. I will have another round of firewood chores: in a couple of weeks we'll get a delivery of green logs that will need to be stacked in the woodshed, where they will dry out for next winter's use. But the basement transfer always feels especially big. I love the sight of a swept floor, tidy stacks, everything neat and utilitarian and ready for winter.

Today I'll deal with grass, such as it is. The only thing green in the lawn is straggly crabgrass, but it sure does like to grow, even without water. Then Tom and I will work on wrapping wedding gifts, which is more complicated than it sounds because we also need to figure out how to carry them in our luggage. And our luggage situation will be extra complicated, not only because of the gifts but also because of wedding outfits and the two overnights we'll be spending on the train.

For the moment, though, I'm just happy to be enjoying Sunday morning--two cups of coffee instead of one, the pleasure of knowing that T is upstairs in bed instead of flying out the door to work, a comfortable idle alone in my couch corner . . . 

Firewood in the cellar, sauce in the freezer, poems in the notebook. Let the winds howl.