December 26, 2007

In San Francisco a Siberian tiger named Tatiana escaped from her cage at the zoo and killed one man and mauled two others. A horrible thing, of course, but imagine being able, when asked “Where did you get that scar?” to answer, “I was mauled by a tiger on Christmas day.”

My sister and I were discussing her adventure in Pakistan. I used the term “mistake,” which she corrected to “disaster,” indicating a situation which blows to pieces through nobody’s fault. This is a useful concept. It puts, for instance, my two years in Baltimore in a bracket freeing me of the culpability I could never fully own. It explains the calamity of taking a house with Toni and Richard the Worm in Syracuse under conditions which seemed so promising. It was not my fault. It was not a mistake. Who could have foreseen the outcome? They were disasters. Like tsunamis. I like that. Coming to Asheville was a mistake but not a disaster, and the mistake has been redeemed several times over, if mainly through sheer perseverance.

Excitement over my voyage tomorrow. I’m rushing around getting things in order, so Larkin’s tenancy can be as trouble free as possible. Painted through the afternoon, a fairy story for Tom’s unborn child.