Indira Ganesan, Algiers teapot and spoon, 2013

As a pun, the summer can be counted before me, because a season is always bigger than an individual, perhaps.

This summer of 2013 is before me.  It is spring only, of course, and spring and its wind makes my eyes itch, even if I want to be outside, which I do. I loved summer as a child because it was expansive space that had an ending: come September, back to school.  But what of the jobless? To tell myself I am giving myself over to write a new book is as frightening as to say I will practice yoga every day and I will eat more vegetables and less brownies.  What I need is a plan, step by step action.  This summer, I have about thirty-five new books to read, but I am going to read the one that has been waiting for me for years, Lydia Davis’ translation of Swan’s Way.  The writing, the yoga, the health plan?  These are life plans, and what I need are deadlines.  I finished the morning journal I began in November.  So: new morning journal, tomorrow.  Writing: one page of the novel, just one page.  One carrot.  There, a plan.