'Catch and Release'

We woke to rain, a drizzle, and the sound of tires on wet streets, on Monday—a sound unfamiliar to the Bay Area recently. The drizzle turned into full on rain, enough to soak the ground, and then stopped, and we were treated to a day of burgeoning clouds. This morning the sky is grey and has an it-could-rain look to it; either clouds or fog blanket the top of the western hills whose tops we can just see through the street trees. Yesterday, taking it easy I bike the ‘Loop’: up Alpine (where Trump had been earlier in the day), along Portola Valley Road, with a short hook up Old La Honda, and home along Sandhill—an hour and a half, easy ride for me now.

It’s grown a little colder in the mornings, almost-not-quite time to turn the heat on for an hour. The days ‘are drawing in’—an expression I love, that I learned from a Welsh friend and teaching colleague in France. We used to put off dinner until the sun had set at around 8 and stopped shining straight in the window; now there sun is down by 7 pm.

Some exciting news. I won the Alastair Reid Pamphlet prize at the Wigtown (Scotland) Book Festival, with my pamphlet (chapbook) Catch and Release. The prize will be awarded on Saturday October 5th at the Wigtown Festival. I have been trying to see how I could be there (from the San Francisco Bay Area), but it looks like it is going to be too expensive. I am sorry, because Scotland for me, as for many Canadians, is in my blood. If I were in Paris it would be simple and relatively inexpensive, but from here…

The Pamphlet has been designed by Gerry Cambridge, a Scottish poet, publisher and print designer, and it is very beautiful. I’m going to upload an image of it later.