9 June 1997

Dear Jane,

Thanks for your paper. I like/admire what you're doing/saying very much.

I'm feeling lackluster today. I'm supposed to be cleaning the house because tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. the carpet cleaners are coming and my landlady's sister, and this weekend our landlady. But instead I've frittered away the morning washing clothes, going to the bank, finishing a book I've been reading, NP by Banana Yoshimoto, looking at my novel and where it is and isn't going. I'd like to be camping on a California Beach, or somewhere in Oregon. Sad to be growing old and tied down and to what? Yourself.

Yesterday I felt summer for the first time this year, we went to some tennis courts at a park where Robert goes swimming. Robert's first tennis experience. The courts are in a woods with good flowery woodsy smells and later afternoon sun. Just beyond the trees, within hearing, the Capital Beltway, like hearing the Beltline from the Arboretum in Madison.

Been thinking about your mother and how I admire her, becoming a cytologist having previous experience as an editor. She's strong and resourceful and you know the way she used to look at us, wide-eyed and unblinking? I looked at Robert that way last night and knew what she was thinking—amazement at being a mother and having a kid.

Happy Summer,
Love,
Morgan