The first day of spring break 2012 proper, and it starts like any spring day should: sun, warmth, clear light. Freshly emerged leaves offset the patch of Azalea blue (or is that purple? I’ve never checked, i.e., asked K) in the back corner. It would be great to be out in the warmth, to do some work on our small raised-bed garden, to work up the first sweat of the year. The grass needs mowing; autumn’s leaves need raking; the raspberries need netting shortly — yet none of these are options.

With a major paper due in a week, I’m sequestered, reading through articles, planning an attack, drowning in coffee and tea.

I spend the day filling a folder with articles from JSTOR, Gale, and seemingly countless other online resources that make it possible to research most anything from home. Then I write, write, write.

“In calling these stories ‘parabolic,’ we encounter an critical etymological parallel with geometry.”

Did I really just write that?

Still, I take my own advice, the mantra to my students that I seem to chant daily: “It’s a first draft. Don’t worry about making everything perfect — or even close to it — in a first draft.”

Evening approaches and with it, new tasks. I help the Girl get ready for bed; I trim tenderloin and prepare the brine for smoking later this week. K reads the Girl stories and prepares a salad for tomorrow’s lunch. Having to go to work tomorrow, she trundles off to bed; I sit down once more at the computer.

Others I’m sure are enjoying a first evening at the beach or the sounds of crickets at a mountain retreat. Me, I’m just ready to turn out the lights and head to bed.