July 6, 2008

Just dawn, a gray-green dark one, one in which it is impossible to believe it’s not raining, but it isn’t. Have been writing for hours, and am happy with what I’ve done. Will decide soon whether to plunge on or take a break and rejoin the world of the living.

Everything I own that is not strictly functional has grown disgusting to me-- mildly, anyway-- and part of yesterday was used to clear away the fancy boxes and cast iron animal banks and porcelain and the tchotchkas I spent time and money accumulating, and packing them away in the garage until the next yard sale, or until my affections shift again.

I have not recorded a ripple of good news, partially because its seems disrespectful in the wake of my father’s death, partially out of superstitious hesitancy to speak of anything good until it’s the rabbit in the sack. A foundation in DC phones the news that The Loves of Mr. Lincoln is a finalist for a prize given to a play about a historical subject. I’ve forgotten the size of the prize, and have not looked it up, lest that engage my anxiety. They did not tell me when the winner will be announced, and I did not ask. I sent out queries to agents concerning In the Country of the Young and The Falls of the Wyona, and received surprising and immediate letters of interest, which were gratifying, but also meant that I actually had to write the things. County is accomplished, and it is Wyona that I’m hammering through now, with some pleasure and, I think, some success. An agent in New York claims to be wild for The Sun in Splendor, finally. Bailiwick Theater in Chicago has apparently chosen Anna Livia, Lucky in Her Bridges for its fall season. The first installment of father’s legacy will get me significantly out of debt, and I expect the whole of it will get me fully out. All these things could miss. All could hit. Except for the money, which is purely mathematical. The mind has its own arithmetic which whispers that this is to make up for what was in some ways a terrible year–my father, unforgivable mistreatment by the university, constant misunderstanding and entanglements with the local theater community, sadness sometimes traceable to a cause and sometimes not–but the wisest part of myself understands that things don’t work that way, that some years the field is nettles and some it is poppies and there is no explanation.

Meanwhile, my cousin Michael Minor almost dies, again, after a bone marrow transplant, and his eloquent wife gives us a sense of what it is like to live in constant crisis, and I do pray for him, exactly as she asks, and am amazed by my vehemence, sincerity, the depth of my attachment to someone I met once when he was a baby in his mother’s arms.