October 2, 2007

Yellow morning. My windows are closed against the chill, but one happy bird-voice hammers through.

GW came to my office yesterday with news that I had not been selected for the India trip this summer, the reason being, basically, that I had not gratified the sort of people who look for that sort of thing by making up a story about how I was going to teach Hinduism to homeless kids when I got home. I recognized as I was dealing with the twin onslaughts of anger and disappointment that this is probably the story of most of my unsuccessful applications for grants and perquisites. I believe–I know–that the best guide to future action is past action, and, displaying the objective fact of my record instead, I have always fallen short on creating the fiction of what I will do with the money or how I will improve the world with the trip. Having done much without the money, having brightened my corner of the world without the trip, is the test of how I will use the advantages, and the reliable truth where all else is but a hopeful expectation. It is not that I haven’t known this was my downfall; it’s that I have stubbornly refused to budge from it. The criterion is wrong and a form of self-flattery to those who employ it. The poem I wrote yesterday, the class I taught yesterday, is the only thing known, the only thing knowable, and upon that should judgments be made.

Do I want to go to India? Not any more. Of course, I never wanted to go more than I did when GW appeared at my office, as he has never done before, and I knew why he was there.

A great yellow steam shovel is digging in the street in front of my house, putting in my gas service. It looks to me like they’re digging where the water line is, but I suppose they know their business. It might be a relief for the whole thing to blow up.

Rehearsal in Waynesville last night. It’s maddening to have two directors whispering to each other while you’re trying to do a scene. Mickey gave me a beautiful photograph from her show.