Dawn Potter's Blog, page 3

It must be raining lightly. I hear drops tapping on the v...

It must be raining lightly. I hear drops tapping on the vents, swish of tires on the street. I hope it will fall all day and all night and that I'll wake tomorrow to a dripping, sodden, satisfied garden.
Gretchen and I had a good trip north. On Tuesday afternoon, we wandered around the town's biggest abandoned quarry, then later sat outside on our deck in the oddly balmy air, drank wine with Lulu the chef,  played a couple of games of cribbage, and then I fell asleep like a rock. So my state of health was improved by the time I actually had to deal with kids . . . only a manageable amount of public choking and snorting.
The day went well; students, for the most part, seemed excited and eager; and it was fun to hang out with the teaching crew again. Then back we went to Portland, where Little Chuck awaited, longing for company. Despite his eager joy to see me, he'd been well behaved during his two long workdays alone. I found no giant messes upstairs or down. So for all concerned, the inaugural trip to Monson was a success.
Today I've got housework to deal with, a phone meeting midmorning, a stack of editing . . . the usual demands. The head cold still clings, and I am tired of it. But clearly I am not in charge.

Amazingly I just woke up from a solid all-night's sleep, ...

Amazingly I just woke up from a solid all-night's sleep, a rare thing in a strange bed. All I can think is that the cold put its foot down (ooh, how's that for a mixed metaphor?) and demanded full surrender. Anyway, already I can tell I'm feeling a lot better, and just in time, jeesh, with those kids busing up the road this morning.

First day of school! Wish me luck.

Supposedly we've got rain coming in tonight, then more ra...

Supposedly we've got rain coming in tonight, then more rain off and on for the rest of the week--a forecast that seems mythical, but I suppose anything's possible.

I'll be heading north with Gretchen this afternoon, and tomorrow will be day 1 of Monson Arts High School, season 6 (or season 5? the Covid gap is confusing). In the morning Gretchen will put on her let's-make-some-stuff show for the whole crew, and after lunch I'll siphon off the writers and start casting the spell.

Ideally I would be healthier than I am, but such is life. I feel like I might be less congested than I was yesterday, and surely tomorrow will be even better? I can only hope.

Yesterday, on my walk through Baxter Woods, I found my first maitake mushrooms of the season. Given the drought, I'd resigned myself to foraging nothing at all, so this was big excitement--a gorgeous cluster, in perfect condition. Now we've got two quarts of choice wild mushrooms in the freezer, to add to the other delights I've been stowing during the past few weeks: peaches, green beans, salsa verde, corn cobs for soup base, chicken broth, tomato puree, kale. The dining room is decorated with baskets of green tomatoes. Cucumbers and green beans are still thriving in the garden. Tom brought home a sack of apples from his co-worker, to add to the wealth. Despite our drought struggles, we are basking in harvest luck.

Because my cold-ridden brain has been too dumb to concentrate on The Waves, I've been rereading Pride and Prejudice, always a comforting, hilarious, satisfying experience. It really is a funny book, a treatise on awkward love affairs and aggravating family life. One thing I like (among many) is the ending. After Jane and Bingley and Elizabeth and Darcy settle their romantic hash, Austen gives us a fat glimpse of their futures: who visits them, who continues to be a thorn, etc. She also offers this portrait of how Darcy's younger sister Georgiana fits into the new menage:

Pemberley was now Georgiana's home; and the attachment of the sisters was exactly what Darcy had hoped to see. They were able to love each other, even as well as they intended. Georgiana had the highest opinion in the world of Elizabeth; though at first she often listened with an astonishment bordering on alarm at her lively, sportive manner of talking to her brother. He, who had always inspired in herself a respect, which almost overcame her affection, she now saw the object of open pleasantry. Her mind received knowledge which had never before fallen in her way. By Elizabeth's instructions she began to comprehend that a woman may take liberties with her husband, which a brother will not always allow in a sister more than ten years younger than himself.

I read this passage aloud to Tom, with much satisfaction. "Sportive" as a recipe for wedded happiness: Austen is not wrong. 

Monday. T forgot to set his alarm so we are groggy and di...

Monday. T forgot to set his alarm so we are groggy and disoriented. He is making his sandwich. I am making the coffee. Chuck is making googly eyes. I stagger around the kitchen, snuffling, my ears plugged--a combination of my cold and last night's excellent show. Though I rested up well beforehand and had a great time, I could have done with about three more hours of sleep this morning. But Monday will not be stayed.

Now the coffee is doing its work: the grogginess is starting to fade, and I am becoming more resigned to the idea of daylight. I've got a busy week ahead--editing, travel, teaching--and this horrid clingy cold must disappear sometime, don't you think?

**

Okay, I'm back, after a flurry of kitchen cleaning. T has headed out to work, Chuck is crunching up some chow, and I am beginning to feel less zombie-like and want to tell you about Swamp Dogg, a little old man in his mid-eighties, about 5 feet tall and dressed in a bright orange suit and a bright orange hat and a bright orange shirt and bright orange suspenders, and he was dancing and singing and wailing and testifying, and if I have to be groggy today, it was 100 percent worth it to see him at work.

Yesterday, to Chuck's thrilled consternation, I brought u...

Yesterday, to Chuck's thrilled consternation, I brought up the firewood boxes and the kindling basket from their summer home in the cellar. Now they sit at the ready, piled with logs and sticks. This morning the air is chilly outside, in the low 40s, but it's not cold enough inside the house for me to justify lighting a fire. Upstairs the windows are still open, and sunshine will warm the downstairs soon. So I will curl up under the couch blanket and breathe in the steam rising from my coffee cup, and that will be cozy enough.

Between the two of us (though Tom did way more than I did), we got all of the green firewood out of the driveway and into the woodshed. I filled buckets and boxes with wood chips for kindling, then swept the rest into the flower gardens as mulch. T lugged the air conditioner into the basement. I picked the big tomatoes and carried them into the dining room for ripening. I processed green beans for the freezer. Between times I read Teresa's poems and Baron's poems and thought about them and took notes. I read a few pages of Pride and Prejudice. I meant to also read a few pages of The Waves but somehow never managed to pick up the book. I coughed and snuffled, in a minor-league way. I made an early dinner (roasted mackerel, corn salad with baked feta) so that T could go out and see a band. I sat on the couch with Jane Austen and ate peach pie and listened to the Sox game. I went to bed early.

Today I'm going to tear out the tomato plants, a task that will also include stripping out the remaining immature tomatoes and simmering them down into salsa verde. I'll make oven-fried chicken for dinner, and baked red tomatoes, and maybe an apple Brown Betty. And then tonight we are both going out to see a show: Swamp Dogg, a soul and R&B legend, described on Wikipedia as "one of the great cult figures of 20th century American music."

I hope the snuffling and coughing will dissipate. Really, this is not much of a cold, and I'm sure I'm no longer infectious, though I'm still feeling slow and dumb. Nonetheless, we managed to accomplish a batch of fall chores, and I managed to think about poems. The mule keeps trudging up the hill. 

Saturday morning, 45 degrees. We're nowhere near a frost ...

Saturday morning, 45 degrees. We're nowhere near a frost yet, but the tomatoes seem to have stopped ripening on the vines. So this weekend I'll start filling baskets with tomatoes, start tearing out plants. I haven't yet touched the pile of firewood in the driveway, so that's another chore waiting. Although I did edit yesterday morning, I felt too crappy and cold-ridden to exert myself beyond laundry and cooking and blinking over a Jane Austen novel. But today I do feel somewhat better, and I expect I'll return to my mulish ways soon.

Young Charles allowed me to stay in bed till almost 6, and now I am dawdling over my coffee as he digests his breakfast upstairs alongside sleeping Tom. That little cat has been such a sparkle; we are both smitten, despite his pesty ways. I don't know when the gut issues will be fully resolved, but I try to remember that he is young yet, and babies always have wild intestinal excitement even when they're not recovering from giardia and neglect. Next week will be the first big test: Can Chuck manage alone for most of a day while T and I are both away at work? Or will we be mopping up a terrible mess? Stay tuned for the next thrilling episode of "Kitten Innards."

In addition to my outdoor chores, I've got a stack of friends' poems to read, an essay to start outlining, my Whitman class looming, and now this new editing project to wrestle with. I'm trying not to panic: this is normal, it's the freelance way, I've been in this situation a thousand times. Still, I do sometimes wonder what it would be like to just go to work and come home instead of whipping crazily back and forth between spaciousness and hysteria. Someday, maybe, I'll be able to start saying no to the editing projects. Someday, when I'm 90. Sigh.

Late yesterday afternoon I got very bad news about a frie...

Late yesterday afternoon I got very bad news about a friend's health, so I'm feeling somewhat blank and stricken this morning. The fact that I seem to be coming down with a cold isn't helping, though I did scribble some decent blurts at my writing group last night, so that's something.

Today I need to get started on a new editing project; I've got a cord of firewood to stack; class and writing and home obligations dangle and sway; but mostly I just feel like putting my head under the covers and waiting for some kind person to bring me tea. That is not going to happen, however, so I will blunder forward.

Meanwhile, Chuck "Mr. Enthusiasm" Van Pelt is bouncing around the house, eyes as big as pennies, making his little conversational chirp noises, occasionally stopping by to lean his cheek against mine, then leaping off again. He woke me at 4 a.m. by way of excessive snuggling. And, yes, he's a dear little good-tempered pest, but losing an hour of sleep was unfortunate.

My friend's bad news is very much darkening the day. But I will go for my walk. I will put clean sheets on the bed. I will make my own cup of tea and I will stand at my desk in my tiny sweet study and listen to the Carolina wren sing in the backyard maples. I will do the work I said I would do.

Everything has arrived simultaneously: a load of firewood...

Everything has arrived simultaneously: a load of firewood, a basket of peaches, and a new editing project. Well, the editing project will have to wait till tomorrow because those peaches will not. I picked out enough for a pie yesterday and could see that the rest would be calling me today. So I may be baking a second pie (for my poetry group) and I'll certainly be scalding, peeling, slicing, and bagging peaches for the freezer.

What a gift, though! Local peaches in northern New England are a rare commodity as the trees are difficult to nurture and often die without warning. Of course, compared to the southern beauties, our northern varieties are lacking. They tend to be small, pale, and tart: no golden globes of sugar here. But they still have a peach's heavenly scent and texture, and the ones I'm dealing with are fairly easy to peel and slice, which is not the case with all.

So peaches are my day, and housework, and maybe I'll start hauling firewood, or maybe that will wait too.

Teresa and I talked about Brigit Kelly's The Orchard yesterday, and it turns out that neither of us liked the collection. Kelly is a revered poet, and many of my favorite people adore her work, so I feel unhappy saying that I just cannot. On the other hand, as Teresa argues, figuring out what doesn't move us clarifies some of the needs in our own work and heart. She and I have both succumbed to Whitman this year; we're both in a chaotic quandary about the direction of our next collections. But wherever we head, it cannot be where Kelly was pointing: that private preciousness, the interiority of the grotesque, an imagination that does not care if mine follows or not.

I spent much of yesterday morning driving around--first, ...

I spent much of yesterday morning driving around--first, out to Cape Elizabeth, to T's worksite, where I got a tour of the unnerving mansion, met some co-workers, and left with a half-bushel of ripening peaches. Then I drove to mall land and bought new bath towels to replace the old ones that are starting to split. And then I made myself do the grocery shopping, though by this time I was very ready to stop being surrounded by conspicuous consumption. So the afternoon was soothing: I processed beans for the freezer, made fresh pickles, cooked down a big pot of sauce, finished reading The Orchard. Homestead tasks may be demanding, but they also make me feel more humane. 

Today I'll be back at my desk--with luck, finishing an editing project, though that may take longer than I expect. This afternoon I'm meeting with Teresa to discuss The Orchard and no doubt a thousand other things. And somewhere in the midst of all this I'll be scribbling notes about the long-poem class. I don't know how quickly those peaches will ripen, but that's another big job looming. I suppose I'll slice them up for the freezer, though I could can them instead. I guess I'll decide later.

I am looking at poems and beginning to imagine a new collection. Sunlight glitters on clusters of unripened tomatoes. Tomorrow the green firewood arrives. Everything is caught. Everything is in motion.

I like coffee fine, but I'm not devoted to it. I enjoy my...

I like coffee fine, but I'm not devoted to it. I enjoy my small cup each morning, my two small cups on the weekends, but I wouldn't miss it that much if it were gone. I could easily drink tea in the mornings. I could easily skip the caffeine altogether. But every once in a while, a cup of coffee is exactly perfect, and that's the cup I am drinking right now. Dark and bitter and steaming. Luxury, plain style.

Yesterday I walked down to the drugstore and got my Covid and flu shots, so now I'll have some protection before I dive into the public school petrie dish next week. Thank goodness we have a fantastic governor. Last week Janet Mills declared that all Mainers can receive free Covid vaccines, so I no longer need to fret about whether or not I can convince a doctor to give me a prescription.

I think I'm ready for my high schoolers, and I'm almost ready to talk to Teresa tomorrow afternoon about Kelly's The Orchard, and now a fresh stack of editing has appeared in my inbox. Still, though I've got plenty to keep myself busy at home, I may take a field trip to Tom's worksite today to check out the final manifestation of the massive house project he's been engaged on for more than two years now. Rumor has it that one of his co-workers is trying to give away some of her peach crop, which could add foraging excitement to my outing. The drought has made it a tough year for foraging. I will likely get no wild mushrooms at all (sob), so a peach windfall would be a thrill.

What else? I should get onto my mat. I should simmer another batch of sauce. I should make refrigerator pickles. I should read The Waves. I should mess around with my long-poem class plans.

Last night for dinner we had maple-miso baked salmon, potatoes roasted with sage, a chard tian, a tomato and green bean salad, apple cake . . . nothing fancy, nothing difficult, but it all tasted so good together. Tonight, maybe sauce and noodles, cucumber and red onion, another slice of apple cake . . .

Here's a bit of excitement, at least between my younger son and me. The Minnesota Twins have just called up the relief pitcher Cody Laweryson from the minors. Cody's a kid from Bingham, Maine, population 600-something, who used to play against Harmony's middle school basketball and soccer teams. P was pretty friendly with him, as these kids from the sticks can be: seeing each other season after season in one another's school cafeteria-gyms, watching each other suddenly sprout from kid to gangly teen. Cody went to UMaine, then was drafted into the Twins system, but at age 27 had never yet pitched in the majors. This week he finally got his chance, and he pitched two excellent innings against the Diamondbacks. Now the Twins are playing the Yankees, and P and I are so thrilled to imagine a kid from Bingham facing the great Aaron Judge. It is just the sort of story we love.