Questions Without Answers

First work-at-home day in weeks. I sit on a cool deck, morning air in my lungs. I'm wearing a sweatshirt and thinking about when to squeeze in a walk. A cup of hot tea beside me; a bag of work at my feet.

A mental checklist interrupts the peace. Something is due today. Oh, that's right: a handout for a panel discussion I'm moderating in two weeks, people I need to pester.

I think about how much of my job involves pestering. Far too much of it, I decide. I think about my job itself and how it's changing — in two weeks my boss is leaving and I'll be doing her job as well as mine.

Am I up to the challenge? What will happen to calm writing time, to sitting-on-the-deck-and-thinking time?

The weather will take care of some of this. Already the goldfinch are gone, along with the coneflowers that attracted them. I hear a strange new bird call that sounds like a squawking horn. A visitor passing through, no doubt.

As for the rest of the adjustment, only time will tell.