Lizard

 August 5, 2026

Turbulent day. 

Rich, intricate dreams, that ended with an extended wildlife motif. At the last I was inspecting a zoo of some kind, and was shown an exhibit where the occupant had not been seen for days. Immediately it came out of the sand, a large red lizard as friendly and demonstrative as a dog. Each time I passed, the lizard came out to greet me. This seemed symbolic at the time. 

The pond weighs inordinately on my mind. This is because it’s an ecosystem that I fostered and for which I feel responsibility. When it’s not getting aerated, I despair. Today I realized (after literally years of anxiety) that I didn’t have to replace the inaccessible motor, but could install one of those portable plug-in fountains that squirts water into the air. Raced to Jesse Israel and got one. Installation was complicated because the motor I mentioned before keeps throwing the breaker, and it looked like the new fountain didn’t work either, until I figured it all out. I do not do well with trial and error, though the universe imposes it on me when it wants. 

 

August 4, 2026

There’s a table with house plants in the living room. Every so often in the evening the houseplants quiver as though struck by a strong breeze. I’ll be sitting watching, and am sure there was in fact no strong breeze, and no way for there to be one. The fan might be on, but it’s been on for hours without any shuddering of the foliage. A little botanical ghost. A figurine of the Buddha sits amid the plants. Maybe he’s responsible. 

Taliesin

 August 2, 2026

Bought some items at Sav-Mor, and as I paid I noticed the check-out boy’s name tag: Taliesin. I knew in an instant who he was, and that I had given him that name. He’s J’s son. When D was pregnant with him, J and I strove to come up with a name that was both heroic and unusual. I’d been reading Charles Williams, so I drew Taliesin out of the air. He’s never met his father, and couldn’t believe he was as near as Johnson City. He quizzed me on J, all the while unsure he wanted to meet and know “a man like that.” Certainly J has not earned his son’s– any of his sons’– admiration. Taliesin is slight and skinny and delicate-looking, but recognizably his father’s. “What kind of man was my father?” he said. Before I censored myself, I said, “I loved him.” 

On the Internet– where I spend much too much of my time– are lists of symptoms and what ailment they indicate. When I read these, they usually imply I’m pretty damn healthy. But I read one: If You Grew up with Emotionally Undemonstrative Parents You Probably:. I tick every single box, exhibit every characteristic, have developed every single coping mechanism listed.

 August 1, 2026

Drove to Valvoline and got my car inspected by the ultra-hot redneck boys. 

Drove to Woodfin to look at the water from what used to be Riverside Park. Still raw and ruinous, as it may be for a century. Mostly people walking their dogs, none of the dogs apparently interested in meeting me. Ten geese flew by, honking, with the eleventh trailing behind. 

I try to avoid conversations with T, because they never end, but I was caught today. I helped him with the English words “dwarf” and “owl.” He works five or six jobs to keep his family afloat and navigates what a Mexican immigrant has to navigate, so he surprised me by fulminating against lazy poor people and people who want things handed to them. Maybe explains why there are immigrant Republicans– we worked hard, and by God they must too. I honor that without feeling it. T is jealous because my mulberries and his were planted at the same time, and mine are gigantic, while his are paltry. He believed that through the last several summers I underpaid him by $1500, so we got that settled. 

Calling of frogs, the music of peace. 

Quincy

 July 30, 2026

Hancock Street goes up at the Ruth Gordon Amphitheater in Quincy, Mass. That play has been done twice in Mass, though under different titles, first at Williamstown. 

After storms and heat, today was cool, sharp as glass, each object radiant.

Watched my cleaning ladies leave after their service, wondering what they thought of me from looking at my house and my things.  

Lunch with DJ and J and L. DJ was trapped in his chair during the black-out– the afflictions you don’t think of unless you’re experiencing them. 

Tempest

 July 29, 2026

Putting things back together after the spectacular storm that struck last night at dusk, the worst we’ve seen since Helene. The power failed early on, and stayed off until morning. The man at Sav-Mor said the power was off for twelve hours. I hadn’t thought until I heard him that an inconvenience for me was a catastrophe for him, with all those booths of frozen food thawing into mush. I called him because of a tree I believe to be on their property leaning crazily above the wires. Will probably discover it was on my property all the while (despite being outside the fence). Reset the pond motor. It’s always so slow to show progress that I don’t know yet if the reset was successful. On phone and email read a half dozen warnings and notices about severe weather, including a tornado warning. I heard the ghostly tornado sirens, the second time since 1983 that I’ve done so. One scoffs at tornadoes in the mountains, but one scoffed once a hurricanes, too. Went upstairs and painted until the light was wholly too low. When the rain stopped I sat on the porch and took in the night, there being nothing else to do. With all lights off, the night is luminous, the south cleared enough that the full moon lent almost-day glory to the garden and the street. It was quite beautiful, the white flowers, hydrangea, hibiscus, startling in the dim, the red flowers so bright they showed their colors. Drank Valpolicella and had one of my out-of-the-body sessions. Minutes of bliss, hard to recollect or justify afterwards. I know that to dwell in the present room of my life brings peace. What I don’t know is if I’m meant to seek peace, or victory in the battles that I believe have been set before me. 

From the attic window it seems the sky is clouding up again. With all that should be tended to, the Republicans are grilling Fauci on a diary he kept ten years ago. The Republican Party is driven by nothing but the thirst for power without responsibility, and for revenge. Should I sit in the dark and look at my flowers? The Leaden Voice whispers, “What else can you do?”

Finally listening to the whole of Akhenaton. Dear God, how did people sit through that? I hope all the singers were naked.

 

July 28, 2026

Interesting turbulence continues. Vivid dreams. I examine the coffee table for crumbs of what I ate before bed when I was already drunk.