Sunset from Captain Will's Boat

 

January 7, 2026

While I was mucking out the pond, my Solar guy, M, appeared ahead of the latest inspector. M had to drive from Myrtle Beach because city inspectors will not open up anything electric, lest they receive a shock. Passed this time. Long talk with towering, sweet-spoken M, who finally said, “Do you sell any of your paintings?”

“How did you know I paint?”

“The last time I was here, I had to go upstairs and you were there painting. You looked so happy. I loved the paintings.” 

The painting he chose was, Sunset from Captain Will’s Boat, oil on panel, painted on January 1, 2025, a memory of the Folly River and its dolphins under westen light. He insisted I sign it, which I don’t spontaneously do. He said, “This is my first piece of art.”

I’ve awakened the last several nights in time to see the moon–last night misty–in glory in my western windows. 

Epiphany

 

January 6, 2026

Epiphany. Removed the Christmas trees and all decorations. The stab of grief that came when I tried to do it yesterday was gone, so it must have been due time. I thought it might be a fierce undertaking, but I finished by noon. To save myself the stairs I cleared space to store the trees and decorations downstairs, but in the end I hauled them up anyway into their old spaces, meaning I have new storage space downstairs for. . .  something. 

Cocktails and dinner with P and L at Deerfield. Their conversation made me think they were trying to lure me to Deerfield or a place like it, where I would be “safe” in case of a geriatric event. It had no attraction to me. A giant dorm filled with elders. Great traffic jam of walkers in the dining room. The whitefish was excellent. A lady by the elevator was relieved when I said I was visiting, observing, "You didn’t look like someone who would need a place like this.” I thanked her in my heart. 

 January 5, 2026

Thought I should take down the Christmas trees before our meeting tonight, but when I began, I was stricken with a such a pang of grief– an eight year old boy awoke inside me crying “just one more day!” I can’t account for the sharp edge of emotion. Perhaps now I feel that each Christmas may be my last. Perhaps I wish not for the gay lights and the beautiful music to pass into ordinary winter. Anyway, another day it is. 

AVLGMC meeting. We are gone in a direction where I have no expertise and no interest. We talk about costumes, but not about singing good music or getting what we do sung right. I am the discord. How to get out of this without sounding disgruntled?

 

January 4, 2026

Quiet night. Berlioz’s “Shepherds’ Farewell” this morning, one of my favorite things to sing. DJ back at church, to thunderous applause. 

 January 3, 2026

Began the morning on the phone with Daniel A.

Bought a clump of birdseed in the shape of a bell and set it on the porch. It remained untouched for several weeks. Moved it to the side yard, with the other feeders and food sources, tied it so it dangles from a bit of metal, and it was attacked by wrens and titmice within five minutes, an attack that went on until sunset. Flickers hammering great chunks out of the seed cones.

AI takes all joy from watching material on the Internet. I believe I can tell fake from real, but what if I can’t?

In a dazzling passage of effrontery, even for himself, Trump seizes Venezuela. Even his admission that the issue was actually oil (it was allegedly drugs, of a particular kind of which Venezuela is not the source) does not bring mobs with pitchforks and torches to the White House. There is end, no check, no timely antidote. No one with a backbone is near enough to strike. 

 

January 2, 2026

Music from downstairs. A day happy, but without what springs to mind as a specific accomplishment, except baking cookies that managed to clear out most of the materials in the fridge capable of being put into cookies. The canisters all seem to have emptied of their contents (sugars, flour, etc) at the same moment, allowing the washing of vessels which may not have been washed since I moved in. The Year of Tidying Up begins. 

 January 1, 2026

If I wanted this day to be the pattern for days to come I have done well. Cleared out vast spaces in the attic, filling boxes for Goodwill. Picked up the brush and painted merrily while listening to Bach’s B minor Mass.  Eight hours left till bedtime, and I am not yet tired.