November 3, 2024

Influenza. I’m so used to my usual panoply of idiosyncratic afflictions– phlebitis, anemia, fasciatus– that garden variety flu is a bit of a relief.  Have slept almost literally all day. When not sleeping, I thought of the Internet repair guy. He was black, and wore bright yellow overalls and hat, and the contrast between sepia and yellow made you suppose he was something other than a repair man. I told him that I lost nothing on my property, but that my church was “swept away.” He looked vary serious and said, “I hear a lot of that, people talking about their lives being swept away without very much emotion at all. I’m not used to it yet.”  I suppose the Tragic Attitude is the hardest one to sustain. He said power will be going on and off for the next few weeks, and not to expect any progress on Sunday, as they all get Sunday off. It is Sunday–our patronal feast day-- and sometime the Internet came back on, for how long who knows. My illness kept me from singing Lauridson at Trinity. 

Big article on Black Mountain in Southern Living Magazine. Several of the places it recommends are gone. 

 November 2, 2024

Cooler morning than one is used to. I don’t want to admit that not having Internet showed me how much of my time I allow it to waste. When it returns-- if it returns, which now seems unlikely-- I must vow not to fall asleep in front of the TV every single night, not to scroll through videos until the time allotted for creation has been spent. Painted well yesterday, then, flipping idly through computer files, came across “Old UNCA” and a file for poems I must have significantly revised while at work. Began to revise, and saved six poems from the ash bin of my past. Sitting on the porch at night, as I have done five nights in a row now, I opened to several revelations, some so secret (and so lovely) I’m not ready to set them down in words. I did recognize how much of my time I spend fighting, often with people who are not there, with imagined opponents whom I might not ever encounter, with people who are dead and their issues therefore moot. It has always been the case, but I’ve thought of it as the background noise of anybody’s mind. Perhaps it isn’t. As I sat in darkness with a drink in my hand, I realized I couldn’t stop it. One argument with the imagined CEO of Spectrum melted into one with a police officer I saw in a video, and that into one with an editor years ago, and that into this and that into this. There was end. I couldn’t control it. In desperation I cried out, stood and made a gesture as though hurling something physically from my body. I sensed it striking the bricks at my feet, vanishing as a shadow. I called it Satan, but I am of a Theistic and Mythopoeic frame of mind, and so I would. In any case, the next hour was the freest hour of recent remembrance. No argument, no setting out of grievance, no putting the record straight, but clarity like water flowing from sheer rock. A little animal, maybe an opossum, maybe a clumsy cat, scurried by the end of the driveway. The first night on the porch I had wondered if I had done what God wanted in any degree, and if I had not, how did I, searching always and diligently, manage to miss the admonition? I saw last night that the distraction of my life had been interrupted to show that what I did in the effusiveness of youth, what I still do with green vigor when I’m not frustrated or distracted– create– is valued, and the Power arranged things (however irritatingly) to renew my attention while there’s still time left. Yes, it is what I wanted. It is what I intended. I have conspired to get you back.

It’s odd, but perhaps an emblem of the times, that when the Lord God shakes the curtain I believe one moment and doubt the next. At ten it was a Visitation, at eleven an upheaval of my own mind. Perhaps that’s the dynamic that moves us forward. But finally I doubt that these thoughts, the apparitions, are intrinsic. “Mind” does not work that way. The dazzling moments are so surprising, so foreign, that you know they arise from a place totally elsewhere.  

I let my coffee get cold. 

Visitation by two exquisitely elegant veeries. Not sure I’d seen one that close before. 

Dug, planted, mulched the fern garden that I ordered in an extravagant moment. Also another small stand of bloodroot. Except for half a bag of silvery purple crocus, all the plants ordered (and which have arrived) are in the ground. 

I was told to expect a Spectrum engineer today between 2 and 3. I gave up and 3:20 and went upstairs. At 4:45 a technician showed up, saying he’d gotten the assignment ten minutes earlier. As service had come back on spontaneously (or something) at about 1:45 I decided to eschew recrimination. The engineer was from New York, brought here to address the various emergencies. He shared my disgust with everything related to his company’s executive system. 

Internet lasted two hours, then went off again. 

Persimmon

 

November 1, 2024

Another night on the porch with a drink in my hands. The Internet’s failure gives me time with my thoughts, often vast and unfamiliar thoughts, often the same dry rustle in the dry grass. I am a small man: I would trade the profundities to have my TV back, at least to have the choice between them 

Pulled myself out of rage long enough to plant Siberian iris, ranunculus in pots (will it grow?) and to paint. Rage interferes with words, but it does not so much with images. It makes me think that anger, unlike other emotions, is a kind of narrative. 

One persimmon clung to the tree after the hurricane. Half of it was rotten, but I ate the other half, and it was divinely sweet. 

 October 31, 2024

My flock of three turkeys visits every afternoon at about 3:30. They favor one certain area, whether because of a statue of Saint Francis, or because open dirt feels good on their bellies, or because a path of sage delights their senses. 

Another day without Internet. It flickers on sometimes, and then one receives joyful tidings from Spectrum, but flickers off again within an hour. Every ten minutes or so I have to stop myself from screaming with rage. Not good for the throat.  Discovered that part of the delay– multiplying the firm’s established incompetence–is that the linemen had not been paid for their work. They staged a work stoppage for two days, delaying everything. When I learned this my rage turned, momentarily, to solidarity. I was glad some principles remained. 

Huge gardening day. Joyful discovery that the autumn crocus, planted after the hurricane, are in purple bloom. New beds dug against the street, wherein were entombed daffodil, black iris. Much mulching, all the bags on, requiring me to renew. Internet, in the few moments when I have it, reports that more shipments will arrive. I must have thought I needed to replant the world. 

Hard time getting to rehearsal in Arden last night. Sweeten Creek Road no longer connects with Biltmore. G said that more roads– those already in bad shape before the storm–in the County are being closed than being opened. Drove home through the dark of Biltmore. Some Halloween activity downtown, good to see. Two cops in their dark uniforms jay-walked across Biltmore. Only a sudden gleam from their badges allowed me to see them in time. 

 October 30, 2024

Internet service came on briefly yesterday, during which time, to save them effort and money, I cancelled my repair appointment, for today. Then, after I’d left rehearsal early to luxuriate in an evening of TV, service was off again. No vehemence on the phone could bring them earlier than November 2. For perhaps the first time in my life I demanded to speak to a supervisor. He was more politic than the agent, but supplied no different answer. The first night this happened my fury was untameable, and turned onto very dark paths not really associated with cable at all. You have done these awful things to me, Lord. Maybe I could at least check email. You have negated me; perhaps I could have Internet. You have stolen my life, Lord; maybe you could let me sit in front of the TV with a vodka in my hand. 

Last night was different, at first merely duller, dull and edgeless. I could not have survived a night like the one before. I couldn’t sit home, so I took a longish walk through the neighborhood in the dark. As I walked, I heard my voice saying to the Night, “You think my suffering is funny.” 

The next words were “I acknowledge that it is.” 

That broke a barrier. Returned, sat on the porch, and my mind wandered, but this time not to anger and despair, but to a probing acceptance I don’t remember feeling before. I said to the Covering Night, All right. You have my attention. What do you want? The Pure Spirit stood in the garden, and I opened my heart to it. I wanted it to speak to me, and after a while I suppose it did, but in a way not easy to discern, in a way that explained why one misses or mishears its voice from day to day. It shifts the heart without addressing it. It changes venue without a path or a door. It does not speak, but its answer is received. Pure Spirit. I catch myself writing “it,” by which I mean to express that the Pure Spirit was not a personality as I recognize it, not a person congruent with my experience. It was Presence. It made my accusations of malevolence and indifference absurd without exactly addressing them. It was Wholly Other, there in the darkness shivering with random lights from the street, utterly beautiful. I asked it why I was born and what was I supposed to do and have I done it at all. I didn’t expect an answer, as I’ve never received one as often as I’ve asked. 

Some time later the words formed in my heart. It is sufficient. 

I determined to sit in the darkness until some rare thing happened–besides meeting the Lord of the Universe under my redbud trees. A bear wandered out of the back garden, crossed the drive into the neighbors’ yard. That was it. The great black Bear of Revelation, appearing for a moment, mostly dark itself, disappearing. 

Of course when I woke an hour ago the first thing I tthought of was the Internet. My suffering is funny. 

Behind the Veil

 October 29, 2024

Internet out again. I assumed the line was torn when tree trimmers came to tear up the hemlocks, not even hauling the debris away, but the problem turned out to be farther down the line.

Strange episode in the silent night. I tore at the veil. I entered the place behind the veil with all my weapons in my hand. 

Barbara Bates Smith is dead. Her “Ivy Rowe” broke my heart, also Gertrude to my Old Hamlet. 

Painting riotously. Is that well?

I know I need cataract surgery, but I put it off because I’m certain that it will be a botch and I’ll go blind. There, I’ve said it.

Hard Times

 

October 28, 2024

Church yesterday in borrowed Trinity. The jazz trio played “Hard Times Come Again No More.”  In the midst of M’s sermon I had a vision of myself dancing in my garden at night, to the sound of distant bells. I knew then that Harris is going to win the Presidency. It will still be necessary for millions to explain why they dedicated themselves-- often slavishly, idolatrously-- to the single most repellent man in American political history. I can see a cult of personality if there’s any personality. I can see enthusiasm and agreement if there are any policies or deeds to agree with. But there’s nothing but gluttony, malice, vengeance, ignorance, cruelty, hoggishness-- which term offends the relative delicacy of actual hogs. I cannot listen to Evangelicals on the subject, for fear I’ll burst into flames. THIS is God’s instrument? It is true, as they argue, that God uses the imperfect, but, referencing Abraham, David, Peter, at al, he uses the imperfect who are striving mightily for the right and miss, by dint of being human. The disgraced, impeached, and felonious ex-President has not striven for any end but his own gratification since he came out of the womb. For him to be in prison on November 6 is the one acceptable justice. There is still the matter of his followers. Did education fail? Near the end of the time when I was in it, education was intimidated enough that it hesitated to make distinctions between right and wrong, good and bad, for fear of giving offense. Certainly some points of view ought to be offended. The ignorant deserve their lives, but they do not deserve influence over the lives of others. One might forgive and move on, but some dark flux gave birth to this morass, and that dark flux must be discovered and investigated. Something went wrong. Somehow we failed to teach love of truth, love of mercy, love of honor. Failed to teach tolerance, let alone empathy. Failed to teach humility, let alone wisdom. We failed even to teach self-interest, which is threatened by every injustice done to another. It’s beyond my wisdom to know how to separate supporting a fascist from being a fascist. It’s hard for me to admit that plain good folks have such malice in their hearts, such ignorance governing their minds. Are they plain and good? If you intend mayhem and suffering, do you expect not to be blamed for doing so? I don’t know how to face them. I don’t know how to desire to face them, even if doing so is the only healing.