I have tremendous energy today. I think I shouldn't be writing here, I should be pursuing my day and all that the day holds with focus and determination on account of my tremendous energy. I am going to do this mother up right, y'all. Yeppers.

The days, which I wish would go on like they�re going for a long while except they are almost done, have taken on a kind rhythm. Loud raucous conversations and teasings and being togetherness followed by a quietness. Last night was a quiet one. We made some supper (Jeff does good with the beans, my friends) and everybody seemed inclined to turn in early. I do believe I crawled into the tent at 9:30 pm, with a flashlight, a beer, Basho, and my book. The tent faces the wide and wild pasture. Oh the tent faces the wide and wild pasture.

Frances came out to visit. The fireflies crackled up in the trees across the way and the frogs hollered in harmony and the air was cool and clean and the night sky all gentled after the storms. I find I've got no desire to relate what we talked about--it was one of those holy and wholly private (though not secret, if you understand my meaning) conversations that can only happen at night at the edge of a wild pasture with a true blue to the bone and back again friend.

We've all been looking around and wondering at how good this feels, these folks all sharing space. Wondering, because we're all hermits and all sort of cranky if we're forced into too much space sharing with other folks. But I don't feel like that at all, I feel like I can be alone here and I don't feel my skin crawl with the need to get away. Quite the contrary all around. I feel something cracking open inside me, the joy of communion.

This morning, when I came in from the outside, Jeff was up doing stuff in the kitchen. And he sent me to work with lunch. I said, thanks poppa. He's got that gentle mother gene as my moms and I call it (but don't misunderstand--Jeff's about as strong and butch a fella as I ever met. He's so butch he can ride a pink girl's bike, you know?). Danny, o troubled brother of mine, Danny's got the same thing and I love to be around folks with that gentle, unobtrusive, mother gene. Like every morning Jeff has made sure I'm up in time to get to work. Isn't that something?

Oh look it's 9 am already. I've got to get moving, got to get myself ready. I'm leaving town so soon. I don't want to feel sad about it though, don't want to mourn the leaving of my friends before they're even gone. I want to feel the big love and the fun all the way through till it's over and I want to not worry about the end before the end has come. And oh baby I'm a-going to COLORADO in just a couple of days. I'm getting excited. Do you think I need a sweater for the mountains? I wish Bashi was coming with me. I meant to say, also, how much I love how everyone's got their own dog to bed down with here. Oh oh oh. Oh when did leavetakings become so hard for me? When I figured out the goodness of the earth, that's when.