I received ten pages of notes on my manuscript this morning from Carolyn. Ten pages.

I have watched a master painter before at college. I watched him from across the room, the way all the light changed when he played with certain colors. Some people can look at a line to a poem and just see a line while others can look and see amazing connections almost as if that one line becomes a being you can walk around.

Forche is trying to teach me to see that. To make every word sing and deserve its place. But today I feel a little like a mule being taught ballet. I have hairy legs and I don’t fit into those pretty shoes. (It should be noted here I don’t really have hairy legs.)But I am a girl who gets a little overwhelmed by fives pages on syntax.

I need sleep. I need time. I need a nanny. Thursday I am heading out of town for a long weekend in the woods with about thirty, four and fifth graders. Why you ask, well because I am the damn mom. Now the manuscript has graduated from being in my car to sleeping with me in the tent. Someday I will look back on all this and smile. Today is not that day.