Rain in morning, fog in night, rain in late night.

For the first day of classes, precipitation everywhere: a day so humid that when it stopped raining, the air choked on the desire for it to start again. Everyone was a little giddy, some people sodden. Guiding discussion, photocopying, scurrying, grabbing food for an impromptu advising session / office picnic, movie-screening, negotiating class lists: it all added up to thirteen hours away from home, a departure in grey wet light, a return in the dark-white of night fog and damp.

There's something quite gratifying about being pulled back into the circles of a common purpose, and of a common purpose multifaceted and capacious enough to hold us all in loose embrace as we spin out to follow our senses of what is needful.

Tonight I will fall asleep to the hiss and ground-slap of a shower.