Certainly there is within each of us a self that is neither a child, nor a servant of the hours. It is a third self, occasional in some of us, tyrant in others. This self is out of love with the ordinary; it is out of love with time. It has a hunger for eternity.

Mary Oliver, Upstream, Collected Essays

I rise early, to the alarm, set before 5:00 a.m. This morning, I break my routine and go directly to the little office at the far end of the house behind two sets of glass doors. It’s a cramped space with a desk, one window to the trees, and plenty quiet. Frank won’t disturb me. He knows I am retreating until I have my manuscript ready for the intensive I am taking it to this weekend–online. I cannot break my stride and go out into the sunshine until I press the send button. This will be hours. I have published three chapbooks since 2014. This, I hope, will be my first full-length poetry manuscript. There is air conditioning in this office and I feel so shut off from the rest of the house and all its activity, and very much from the yard and the gardens, the sky, a breeze and the hot sun. There is a small, round window at the very top of a high wall, and when I look up I can see only the evergreen branches, so deep green against the bluest sky.Relief. I am selecting and ordering poems and yet I know I will return with a jumbled and transformed idea about this book. The project is likely to move int the chaos of disorder once again. Strange, to be ordering, knowing and trusting that more disorder must come next. Strange to trust that these hours and choices will not be wasted, regardless. I’ve been through this process before. I have made my poems better. At noon, I am done. For now. I eat my lunch on the deck and get very delightfully heated. And then, Charlie is sad, but I get on my bike and I ride in the sun past the meadows and fields and I’m shedding the airconditioning from my skin and I’m breathing the scent of grass and wildflowers, and I am tired and refreshed and grateful. I get enough energy to take myself and two computers to the Apple Genius Bar–they have safe procedures, and I cannot avoid it. Then, I meet my daughter on the dock for a swim, which is absolutely necessary. The pond water is warm, the sun is bright in my eyes. I go home, but not to the office. There is pleasure in clearing up clutter, putting odds and ends of housekeeping in order. I have given hours and hours and hours to what Mary Oliver calls, my “third self.” And now, I am happily letting her rest.

[Reader, please forgive any types–I’m on a temporary computer situation and cannot adequately see this screen to catch my errors and fix them!]