Front Porch.

My brother, in town for the procreation in-law jubilee, said we'd given something up leaving the old house, that the old front porch was an odd growth of a thing, but better than what we had here. And in ways, he was right—there was not much better than sitting up under that huge Japanese magnolia and listening, hopefully, to the dogs not bark across the street.

And I do miss that porch, miss that I made it, miss that it turned out to be such a glorious monstrosity. But the view from here—the neighbor's magnolia, the dogwood over here on our side, the streetlight I ought to hate but that instead reminds me comfortingly of Carr Street, the easy frequent sounds of trains, the front-porchiness of this porch—the view from here, tonight, with rain off to our north and west and breeze coming in strangely from the east and south, a little springtime gin in a glass and a squeeze of lime, the dog set up on the front porch steps just yes exactly as she used to back at the white house (930? 933? it was one of those) in the bad old days, or even the days before the bad old days—the view from here is fine, thank you.

Some kind of weather is afoot. We have busted ourselves free of last weekend's doldrumed days. I am trying and trying to figure out what writing a different book might be supposed to feel like. Cannot under any circumstance no how complain. I think I just now heard thunder out of that distant little storm. This is a fine breeze we've got going out here.