Next month, we’ll all jump in the car on Paul’s birthday (he’s such a good, supportive sport!) and drive back to State College so I can take part in the reading for this year’s Public Poetry Project, sponsored by the Pennsylvania Center for the Book, which is housed at Penn State. This is a wonderful initiative that identifies and celebrates Pennsylvania poets by printing their work on posters that are then distributed across the state to libraries, coffee houses and other public spaces.

During my years at Penn State, I always looked forward to being in the audience for this event, and to hanging the current year’s posters around my office. I still have many of them. They are lovely artifacts.

So I’m really delighted this year to be on the other side of the experience: my poem, “This Weather,” which will appear in Beautiful Nerve, has been chosen as one of this year’s featured pieces!

I’m also delighted to have the opportunity to spend a few days visiting with much-missed friends and seeing some of the places that were dear to us. The kids want to get sushi at Fuji & Jade Garden, and Paul wants to go to the library (no surprise). We both want to go to the Arboretum. It will be *just* spring by then, and likely still pretty dormant. But I remember many years on Thomas Street when the crocuses were up by then, so maybe we’ll be rewarded with some blooms after all.

Rudy at two and a half. How is that even possible?