November 18, 2024
Deacon M leaves us yesterday with a fiery sermon. She believes that praying will bring down Trump. Certainty is lost on me, but persistence is not.
Planted, I believe, the last of the last. Five yellow trillium roots were meant to be in the package. I found only one, but planted the lot anyway, as an act of faith.
November 17, 2024
Bach from Alexa downstairs.
Vivid dreams. You sleep too late in order to have more of them.
Something overtured everything on the back porch, smashed a flower pot, arranged Kit’s mug as though it were about to be painted.
Reading Wycliffe’s bible. It offers of itself only charm and quaintness, though the backstory is enlightening. Why do people say the English Reformation began with Henry VIII? Why do people get (everlastingly) agitated by the things they do?
One adjusts to the truth that a solid plurality of one’s fellow Americans preferred a known fascist and autocrat, public, loud, without subtlety, who did not hide one detail of his catastrophic character. Deception cannot be blamed. Confusion can be blamed, of course, but in a case like this, probably not remedied. A snake slithering toward you –hissing the whole time-- can be mistaken for– what? Perhaps it was gender, the enduring frontier sentiment: “better any man than any woman.” I’ve heard some explain that “the economy” threw the match, but that makes me wonder what on earth made people imagine Trump to be interested in the economy, or if so, what he was going to do with it. What he did in the past was enrich the rich: the only Trumpian financial outcome known for sure. He said he would “fix the economy,” but from a many-times failed businessman that’s not reassuring. Every sentence that comes from his mouth contains two lies, so expecting “I’ll fix the economy” to be an exception is an act of desperate faith. Some say it was “security,” by which I suppose they mean border security, but what we will actually get is the most insecure time in our national life since the War of 1812. A sovereign and predatory police force, marked by violence and impunity, is a necessary adjunct to all autocratic regimes, and our society is about to lose the gains made against that specter from 2020 onward. Why talk of civil or Constitutional rights when Security– however ill-defined-- is everlastingly the issue? Is resisting agents of the State not automatically an act of insurrection? “Surrender your papers” is about to be heard on every street corner, and some will sigh with relief. If there is a return from that, I don’t know what it is. Obliteration, then rebuilding from the ruins. Or moving on to an America presently unrecognizable. Trump is naive about foreign affairs, ignorant of every aspect of diplomacy without caring that he is. Not interested in our foreign interests, he will neglect them, will make the wrong choice every time, will abandon allies and give comfort to enemies. That this is treason has already been dealt with by the Supreme Court, which shrugs its shoulders and says “Oh, well.” No one will rely on us and fewer and fewer will fear us. Never having a plan, never caring to see a minute ahead, Trump will react like the ignorant bully he is when crossed or disrespected, and that could mean the end of the world. We who lived in the 60's feared we’d see it then, but no world leader of that time was as dementedly volatile as the leaders of this time. In choosing his Cabinet so far, Trump demonstrates that he has no interest in governing. He told you that before the election. He said aloud that it’s all about getting even, about counter-punching. The President of the United States is a gangster from a bad TV show. My friends, you voted, with eyes wide open, for the worst candidate that has ever stood for any election on this continent. I sometimes think “owning the Libs,” getting back at the “elite” by damaging what you suppose is precious to them, is the reason beneath the reason. If so, good for you. You have succeeded. You have avenged yourself for that “D” in Language Arts by burning the schools. You have evened your grudge about that vaccine by insuring the ill-health of your children. You have addressed the price of groceries by electing the one man who will insure that price goes up. His friends can pay it, no problem. You have bought “security” by making yourself mortally vulnerable to every yahoo with a badge and a blue hat. Eighty years after your grandfathers died to stamp out fascism, you have built it a fortress in their homeland. Fine work.
Night: Rameau from the computer.
November 16, 2024
I may live my life having experienced only one President younger than myself.
Planted hibiscus and lupine, mulched, came within one box of yellow trillium of finishing the garden.
However things are with my health, massive afternoon naps are still the rule. They team with vivid, sometimes quite habitable, dreams.
Each night I think I’m going to have something to say about the election. The tsunami has struck, drowned everything it could, now slowly withdraws. Analysis will likely be impossible until one has stood on dry ground for a few minutes.
November 15, 2024
Physically thwarted from getting to rehearsal last night by traffic stopped on Sweeten Creek. I sat through eight changes of the traffic light at Givens Estates and not one car had moved. Death-defying U-turn and came home.
Our return to All Souls may be delayed as long as a year because of infra-structure issues in Biltmore Village. When do delays and setbacks become the sign to move on? One must distinguish between habit and commitment.
Picked up groceries for DJ. The man in charge of the operation there had the face of an Orthodox icon, lean and wide-eyed and holy. His conversation was about how to make things easier next time, but coming from that visage it sounded like prophesy.
November 13, 2024
Returned to ASC rehearsal last night, successfully, without coughing fits, or with fewer coughing fits than those gathered around me. Neither was I in particularly bad voice. Energy drained. Coughing renewed later in the evening, including the strangle-cough, where the impulse to cough is immediate, irresistible, not-prepared-for, multiple, hitting before a breath can be taken, so the longer you cough, the more breath you lose while taking none in, until you’re emptied of air and still trying to cough. You say to yourself, “This is how I go.” It may be. Hasn’t been yet. Smashed the morning to pieces getting a Kirkus sales crusade going for Wyona. Also trying to use Facebook pages which cannot be used, cannot be saved, and, apparently, cannot be deleted. Still may plant bloodroot if I walk out the door and can stand the sudden cold.
November 11, 2024
The first day I’ve felt somewhat less unwell. Medium level body ache, medium level congestion, medium level cough. I’m only moderately tempted to rejoice. Knew I was getting better when I began to think of things I wanted to write.
Recommended E for an honorary doctorate.
Decided there was not enough trash in the can to haul it to the sidewalk.
Have not been entirely successful avoiding images or news of Trump. In a few seconds before I got my finger back on the key, he vowed in his first week in office to take away the accreditation of any university which allows anti-Semitic propaganda. Don’t know what he means by that (maybe any statement even mildly tempered with sympathy for the Palestinian cause), but I do know in a reasonable time the statement would be ludicrous. But the Supreme Court has arranged it that “he can’t do that” isn’t even a deterrent. Who calls him to account if he does?
