April 5, 2026
Easter Sunday.
The flights were endless but otherwise uneventful. Ten hours between Frankfort and Fort Worth managed to be whittled down by one movie after another, only the lightest and least demanding fare. Watched Merrily We Roll Along. I could see why it bombed its Broadway debut. The reboot was tolerable because of the energy of fully committed performers selling as hard as they could. A successful composer bewails what in his life remains imperfect regardless of the success: self-referential, narcissistic, exposition-heavy, almost incapable of arousing sympathy for the main character, of interest now primarily to those who are as interested in Sondheim as he was in himself. One side (channel? track?) of my earphones malfunctioned, so I heard only select parts of the films, the soundtrack but not the dialog of How to Train Your Dragon; not one word from the witches in Wicked but every syllable from Michele Yeoh; I saw the movie, but never heard Daniel Radcliff sing, or any of the others who happened to be standing by the wrong mic.
Talked with a TSA agent at Passport Control at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport.
“Have they paid you yet?” I say.
She answers, “A little. The bare minimum. Just in time. I thought I was going too lose my house.”
I am. . . we are all. . . so sorry.”
“Thank. I appreciate you saying that.”
She was a black woman with the most stunning green eyes.
On the drive home, Billy asked me about the trip, the first time I had to reflect on it. I had a good time. Arrived home as I hoped I would before midnight, so I could have Easter in my own space, the wet, quiet dark, with the fragrance that only then I recognized as my own garden.
Certain things must be dealt with, first the catastrophic failure of my body. I limped along the neverending airport corridors sometimes literally crying with pain and frustration. At one point a man driving one of those motorized carts stopped for me, and I literally could not lift myself into the vehicle. I was the first out of the plane and last to make it to the luggage carousel. Have I let myself go? Can this be amended by stretching, by walking? By working out? By getting better shoes? I’m used to the pain of movement lessening with repetition, but this time it got worse, from not bad to all to literally unendurable. At every step my bones uttered, “We will never do this again.” Is it encroaching age, and nothing can be done? That would be odd. That would be unlike the balance of my experience. This morning I felt perfectly well, so at least the effects do not linger. I felt well, I correct, but for the jet-lag that hits me this side of the ocean, and prevents me from staying off the bed for more than a few hours.
Considered going to church. Did not. Watered my planets. Wandered in the garden enough to know that beautiful things have happened: the dogwoods have bloomed, and the bluebells, and my ferns have come back from the devastation of the last freeze, and the miraculous pond pump pours out a stream three times the volume it was when I left it, the motor inhabited by a wilful spirit.
Fully unpacked. The Meissen survived the ride back in my checked luggage, as its meticulous packing by the girl in the shop suggested it would.
Wakening bears overturned the trash bin but could not get through the bear-proof lid. I should write a testimonial.
At exactly the right moment I opened a door and found the ancient cardboard rabbit cut-out with which mother used to decorate Easter. I put him up, to preside over festivities, such as they were, for perhaps the first time in sixty-five years.
