Ah, the wind died down, my hat stayed firmly atop my head and the shorebirds came back to the water’s edge and I walked so happily in their company this morning: the royal terns and the heron and the snowy egret and the sandpipers and gulls, pelicans and all fishing for their breakfasts. I walked into the Sunday sanctuary. At Longboat Pass bridge a group of teen boys fished. They caught a stingray, a big wild beauty, by mistake. I watched nearby. They took his picture. I worried. I wanted the wild thing left alone. He waved the flaps of his rays, he struggled, and I wanted him to not be caught and held out of his element. I spoke to the boys. “You’ll let him go?” One of them took clippers, cut him free from the hook. “Yes, Ma’am,” they said. I watched them let the stingray go and then I breathed easy again, kept walking by the surf, by the birds. Today was a lovely warm day of company, friends leaving, friends arriving. Far from home, we are still connected to old friends. How lucky we are. I am preparing, in my mind, for travel. I will go to San Antonio on Tuesday to AWP–huge literary conference. A friend who runs a literary magazine who had planned to host a book signing for me canceled her trip today because of the corona virus, and I understand, she feels at risk. It’s a strange moment of uncertainty for all us. It’s 10,000 people. I will wash my hands and forego handshakes and I’ll be glad to be there. Friends who are here this evening say: first case of the virus today in Armenia, a country that cannot handle this at all well. Oh! And we kayaked today with our friends from across the street up the canal and into the bay, I wanted to show them bird island where countless birds gather in the trees surrounded by water. And I wanted to get lucky and show them the roseate spoonbill I have seen there. And, yes! There she/he was! Pink feathered and spoonbilled sitting majestically on a branch letting us take a long, close sighing look of appreciation. What a treasure! How lucky a day this was.