April 30, 2008

Last evening ended with Amanda’s recital at All Souls, an eclectic mix of songs, mostly in French. She has a talent for characterization that must be great on the stage, a natural actress. R entered at the exact last phrase of the last song, thundered his way to the front, laughed loudly.

Abundant day today. Rose and went to the Y, where I worked out long and nobly. Returned home and plunged into the garden, weeding, weeding, digging out a new planting space from the grass, into which I set lupine and Jacob’s ladder.

In the evening I went, at DV’s invitation, to the honors banquet at a bistro in South Asheville. His friend James fell from a waterfall over the weekend, and the demands of mourning have drained him considerably. He talked of his family in ways that made me envious, the closeness, the completeness–even the exclusivity–of the familial circle– I have nothing to compare it to. No way even fully to imagine it.

Father was denied his driver’s license not because he’s 89, but because they were "not happy" with his ID. He had no birth certificate and has never had a passport. That it is asinine needs hardly to be said, the notion that he could be a threat to anybody, or that a person who has been carrying a driver’s license for 70 years should suddenly be faced with new, bewildering, and absurd requirements. Nothing will be better than for everything George W Bush has done, desired, caused, touched, or considered to be sunk into the earth. In an effort to find proof of identity, they began to search old records. Father’s father’s name was Oliver Percy, but some memory of a noble name made him tell the researchers it was Oliver Wendell, some echo of Oliver Wendell Holmes. No wonder they found nothing.

Voted early downtown. The voting officials were welcoming and jolly almost to the point of hysteria.