Labor Day weekend found me in my happy place in Michigan, reading and writing, beaching, loving on my aging dogs, and enjoying the company of dear friends. I wrote a couple of poems whose staying power remains uncertain—I’ll revisit them in a couple of weeks to see if they feel right—and was thrilled to get an acceptance letter from a new online poetry journal. My Labor Day labors might not bear any fruit, but labors that preceded them did, and that feels good. I’ll share details when the poem is actually published; meanwhile, I bask in acceptance.

Old dog thrived when we went beaching a couple of weeks ago, and this weekend was no different. She no longer scampers in the sand, and despite the beach being a two-minute walk from our hosts’ door we now drive her there so she won’t have to walk back home up a dune. But she still loves the smell and feel of fresh lake air, the lapping of water against her feet and tummy, and the adventure of meandering from water to bluff and back with nose to the ground. At the end of a week of short but happy walks in the sand in mid-August, her arthritic hips had regained much mobility. The opportunity to bring her back this weekend was more than we could have hoped.

Small dog, who also is old but not quite so much so, still has a tiny amount of run in him, and the charming habit of wiggling his rear end and lolling his tongue when tired. The beach for him remains a happy adventure, as does so much of his world. He’s almost always happy and invariably makes us so as well. He frolicked—truly frolicked—on the beach, and made his people smile.

I finished reading Havana Blue by Leonardo Padura early in the weekend, enjoying this first adventure of Havana Police Lt. Mario Conde as much as Padura’s later Grab a Snake by the Tail. The rest of my reading time was spent on The Woman in the Dunes, by Kobo Abe, which is my book club’s latest selection but not a book that I loved. Others do, so you might also, especially if you like yourself some stream-of-consciousness psychological meandering.

My weekend writing centered on a homework task I was given at a recent Poetry Foundation workshop on blackout poetry. I’ve written found poems before, but never blackouts, so this is a new challenge for me. I honestly don’t know if what I’ve produced is any good, but I’ve enjoyed the work and hope to do more of it.

In between, I had hummingbirds hover less than 2 feet away from me twice, watched blue jays and chickadees, goldfinches, a pileated woodpecker, and maybe a flicker among others, stared breathless at the star-filled sky, and breathed. This morning, I spent no small amount of time simply watching steam rise off of a wooden fence post. You can, too—I captured my moment of zen on video:

I scribbled a few poem fragments in the car during the ride home and feel ready now to settle in for a quiet evening transitioning back to the work week. Which brings me back to Labor Day and reminds me that I truly am grateful for the rights and privileges won for me and other workers by union members and union leaders over the years. I’ve little doubt that without them, I wouldn’t have been able to spend the last three days in my happy place.