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.