November 8, 2008

Have been going to bed early, which is a trigger for rich dreams. Last night Irish towns were imbedded in a great rain forest full of tropical animals and mysterious spirits. I seemed to be a kid hanging out with kids, especially a solemn lad who was Peter B in body, but not in demeanor. He had seen something in the forest which frightened him, and made him very serious, and he wanted me to see too, so we took a road trip, which became a hike as the forest thickened and the road became unusable. It was a long dream with many side paths. Sometimes we went to the Irish towns to shop or get back in touch with civilization. Often we were in the forest. It was rutted, like the forests I remember in the north, with overgrown logging roads. We ran across various groups of people–mostly American women–who had come there to get in touch with forest spirits or the indigenous milieu or some such thing. I learned to play a sacred instrument which was made of clay and you blew into one of many holes. One night we heard a terrible noise on the forest. One of the women said “That’s the spirits passing. I hate when that happens,” as though she had heard it a thousand times. In the course of it, I was becoming a spirit myself, often apparently (and delightedly) invisible to those who passed near to me. If I came to the edge of one of the towns, people would look at me as if they didn’t quite see me, or were afraid. I was shirtless, and decorated myself with red feathers. It was disappointing that we never actually saw the wonderful things the women and Peter were seeking in the forest, though, as I say, I think we might have been becoming them. I think if I lay down and slept now, that dream would continue.

Bought a vitrine from a man who was standing there when I entered his booth at the antiques mall. When he saw me looking at the piece, he said, he said, “I’ll give you 15% off, plus I’ll deliver.” I didn’t think I was looking for a vitrine, but I bought it, and now use it to house the sizeable teapot collection that I hadn’t realized I was amassing. There were three men, clearly owners of booths, ranging the store yesterday morning, and I noted that he was the one who was handsome. Whatever other plans I might have had were dashed when he arrived with his wife. Still, I have the vitrine. I wonder if that’s what that thing is actually called? Talked with another booth owner who said, “Weren’t you my Humanities professor?” I supposed I was, though I didn’t remember her. I asked if she had good memories of the class, and she said she did. I asked this because at coffee earlier in the morning, Jason said he’d been at a party where he met one of my former students, who said she hated me She had offered the information about hating one of her professors several times before Jason asked who it was.
“Why did you hate him?” asked Jason.
“Because he left out such-and-such an author in class.”
“Did you mention it? Did you ask if you could do that author?”
“No.”
The former-student booth owner was putting sale signs on all her stuff, because she foresaw the financial collapse of America, and wanted to be as liquid as possible when it came. I said, “The Market is up today.” She said, “They’re in for a surprise.” I think she must have been a McCain supporter.

Showed Jason our studio. He seemed happy, and that made me happy. I was hoping to use it for the Studio Stroll, which is today, but it is far from finished, and there is no hope of that. Maybe it’s my signal from the gods not to bother with the stroll, which has been frustrating the last several times. But the new studio is big and high and has great tall windows opening on the east and south.

Had dinner with Diane Gilliam and WW luminaries, in connection with my role on the Warren Wilson Library board. She’s the visiting speaker this weekend, and as we chatted, I discovered she lives in Akron, on Robindale, in the shadow of Ellet High. It is a world of terrible smallness.

Still very dark. The Christmas cactus hovers like a cloud in its white blossoms between me and the invisible ceiling of the room. This is my favorite time.

Late morning: Drained and cleaned the water gardens, then refilled them with fresh water to give the waterlily roots somewhere to spend the winter. It’s been months since anything was visible under that organic soup. From one barrel I took five surviving wild minnows and from the other five surviving store-bought goldfish, one of them black. I took them to Beaver Lake and lowered them in, to begin a new, and far wider, life. I watched while they shouldered their way through the leafy mess at the edge of the lake. They did not know which way the deep was, and I could see them a long time, lingering, doubling back, poking things with their blunt heads. I allowed myself to think they were gesturing goodbye before they entered the profundities.

I wondered why the cattails, which in spring had been tilted by the least wind, had anchored themselves by summer. I discovered that they had shot out a great root, thick as a child’s arm, covered with green roothairs, which filled the bottom of the barrel and gave them a foundation. This I cut into pieces and lowered into the mud at the rim of Beaver Lake, thinking that a stand of cattails, and maybe red-winged blackbirds bubbling in them, is just what it needs.

A red fox ran across the street in front of my car on Charlotte Street. He was a flame of fire.