I have a few announcements.

Things have been a little hectic around here:

1. I confess that the following things have been done in a half-assed manner. By me. I have done the following things, possibly, in a half-assed manner:

• possibly teaching
• possibly grading
• cleaning my house (understatement of the millennium!)
• cooking dinners (see parenthetical above)
• movie-going
• being a good friend
• service on two non-profit boards
• everything else

2. I have been to various locations in Utah County approximately fifty times in the last two months or so. 

3. On every one of those days, I saw my father and mother and usually one of my sisters and/or my brother, which makes those drives feel worthwhile.

4. My book is now at the printer's, which means I feel like every single one of my line breaks is specious and I left out one thank you and there are two words in my bio that make the whole thing feel pretentious and everything is stupid and I am a hack.

5. (On the other hand: my book. My book!)

6. What does anything mean anymore? Is the world on fire, or is it just burning? 

7. I feel so, so lucky in my family right now. My father made a tiny hilarious joke at my expense today and it was the sweetest thing ever. My brother brought me a doughnut. My sister and I cheered my dad on while he was walking with a walker. Time, the body, love, presence, it's all entirely precious and to be cherished. Cherished above everything.

8. My mom asked me to make a bunch of photo prints for my dad, to put on the wall, so he could lift his eyes up and see them. I found a place that made these little square prints, which arrived today:

this is only half of them.

I love them so much. They're like saint cards or a tarot, full of meaning which arises from their juxtapositions and adjacencies. And of course, I forgot a few people, which just means making more. The sense I've had for years, an urgency, that these beloveds will not be with me forever, is my new now.

9. Flip side of all of the above: melancholy. Petals on the windshield, sheets of rain. More light but with heavy clouds.

10. Soon it will be April. That's right, the cruelest month. I will write a poem a day--Dr. Write, are you with me? A poem a day will be, if not a saving grace, a grace tout court. 

Adjudicating.

On the one hand, I hear it's supposed to snow again. On the other hand, the wind smells more like earth than ice. On the other hand, it's pretty gusty tonight, like a storm's coming. So, winter.

I can hardly bear to wear a heavy coat anymore, but when I don't wear a heavy coat, it's cold. Pretty cold. I couldn't bring myself to wear tights today, and I have a personal policy that once I stop wearing tights--i.e., once I go bare-legged--I can't go back. So it might be getting closer to spring through the sheer force of my sartorial choices. You can thank me later. On the other hand, is it narcissistic to believe that my own desires might have an effect on the weather?

Yes. So let us turn back to the empirical evidence: more light in the morning, and that light is more golden and less blue, as my friend Ann points out. The world seems more crocus and less poinsettia, more lilac and less bare branch, more like prune the grapes back and less like hole up inside. Soon it will be all asparagus and spinach and peas at the market. When I drove past Okubo's greenhouses today, I thought about the flowers and herbs I long to plant. My longing≠ spring, however--does it?

Still, it's March and not February. In eleven days it will be the mid-semester break. Spring break. So, spring.