WHY PEOPLE LOVE WHAT CANNOT LOVE THEM BACK

June 22, 2008

My sister phones first thing to say she thinks this morning will be dad’s last. Recent days have been an evolving drama of collapse, each minute something new or worse gone wrong with him. He’s apparently in a period of apnea, where he has to fight for every breath. A horse with a broken leg may be allowed to rest, but not a ninety year old man into whom enough morphine cannot be pumped, who must be watched as he slips through the levels of torment lest something unethical transpire to end the suffering too soon. It is institutional torture. It is the medical profession’s way of remind us they have control over life and death, and it is evil.

Meanwhile, cousin Michael heads for the bone marrow transplant which may save his life, or prolong his suffering, or God only knows what. I am mortified to have complained last night about a sore foot.

Note to self: do not get cancer.

The sore foot was achieved by standing a long time for the Cantaria Concert, which I believe was a success. Larry and Janie Wilson were there. I couldn’t quite get through my head why. Leah Karpen. The Bryants. Owen and Michael A, who had never gone to a choral concert before. People who talked to me familiarly about Edward in New York. We went to the Usual afterward and had a drunken celebration, several Cantaria factions altogether, and I think that was very, very, well, for we were happy in each other’s company. It has been long since I have been quite so drunk.

Beau, the baritone florist, wanted to do flowers for the church. We talked about that for a while, and then he said, "What kind of church is this?"
"Episcopal."
"What does that mean?"
"Well, literally, that we are governed by bishops."
"What does THAT mean?"
He wanted tp know where the church came from and how it was different from other churches, and soon I found myself leading him to the court of Henry VIII. The Village Explainer in me is always delighted by such opportunities.

Went to Montford Park and auditioned for As You Like It. The chubby factotums who run the place skittered through my audition the whole time, but I suppose I got points for enduring it. I played Jacques at Hiram long ago, and discovered as I read that I remembered the lines pretty well.

Father had a moment of lucidity a few days ago, at which time he looked at my sister and said "You’re fat. Do something about it." One hopes he could have been joking. One shrugs, sighs, and assumes probably not.

Work on The Falls of the Wyona has been going like a house afire.

EVENING

Drove to Crazy Lady café on Church Street in Hendersonville for a performance of Kind Eyes and several other pieces by other authors. For Kind Eyes I had one good actor and one bad one, and you’d think that would achieve a kind of acceptable average, but it doesn’t. It’s like trying to drive with two flat tires and two good ones. All the plays were pretty bad and worsened (or at least not improved) by bad acting. There were two good actors: my rat was one, and my student Grant was the other, intelligent, natural, graceful. I was proud of him. Most of the people in that room have been working for years to perfect their craft, and the fact is that no measure of work or honest effort will ever make them good, and I cannot explain why that is, or present the justice of it. They do everything right, by the book, what innumerable speakers at innumerable conferences have said, but it is still trash. Grant is a good actor and they are not if he has one line to his resume and they pages. The best they will ever do will be presented before ten of their best friends in a restaurant in Hendersonville and STILL be a waste of time, and I say that in wonder at the unfairness of the world. Theater is a gift that can be enhanced by skill but not bestowed by skill. I have a feeling that is the same with all the arts. I cannot explain it, cannot justify it. But it is as it is. Why people love what can never love them back is a mystery we must wait for eternity to explain.

Father is in a coma, breathing hard, mindless, senseless so far as anybody can tell. It is too awful to think about, what the habit of being puts us through. The hospice nurse said he is waiting to say goodbye to someone, and though I doubt very much that it’s me, Linda put the phone to his ear and I spoke. I didn’t say anything important. But I walked in the last light, and, standing in my garden, touching the thick, rain-damp living stems of the towering hollyhocks, I thought what I should say. I called to him through the night air. I said. "Eugene, the world has not been fair to you. The hand was not evenly dealt. Let it go. Let it go now. Start again. Trust the new turn of the wheel. Let it go, and in one moment be made new. Start again. Start again."