Write about a time someone said yes.
                  -- prompt for May 28 in A Writer's Book of Days by Judy Reeves

Two of my favorite quotations say yes. My habitual morning prayer is from E. E. Cummings:

i thank You God for most this amazing 
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

And from Dag Hammarskjold's Markings: For everything that has been, thanks and praise. For all that is to be, yes.

Ron and I used both of those thoughts at our wedding, 19 years ago come August. The Cummings was the invocation, and the Hammarskjold was part of the vows, as was as another of his thoughts: If only I may grow -- firmer, simpler, quieter, warmer.

I've been struggling mightily the last two weeks to stay focused on the contemporary fiction work I began in the fall. My tutor, who has helped me immensely over the past ten months, will be unavailable after the end of this week. Yet I've been unable to be very productive, to take advantage of his insights and his expertise.

Part of it is that I have an attention span shaped by so many years in the school system. Something about late May just says, out with the old, in with the new. Lynn has only two days of classes left, then four days of finals, and then it's outta there. In fact, when I was a teacher, I would assemble a folder in the beginning of May marked Outta Here! There I'd collect all the forms and checklists I needed in order to shut down the operation for the summer -- the finals schedule, the fine list (names of students who owed a book or some other piece of school equipment), the failure list, the room inventory, the summer address card, etc.

Even though I'm no longer in the classroom, I feel a sense of something ending and another thing beginning as I come off this holiday weekend. The 19th century is calling me back. I was at Kutztown University last week for the annual dinner of the Pennsylvania German Heritage Center. It's been nearly a year since I did any serious work on my Berks County projects. I miss that milieu.

So I'm moving forward, saying yes to a new season, yes to some new endeavors, yes to completing some old projects, yes to whatever may come. And again, thanks for reading, and thanks for coming along.