August 29, 2010

Sunday morning.

Last night I dreamed that I was starting college again, but I was very poor and could not live in a dorm, but rather in a campground where everybody had his own tiny tent, and they were side by side in long rows. The tent was more commodious than I had expected, but still I spent most of the time looking for someone to whom I could explain that I couldn’t possibly live like that.

Rose this morning, wrote some, read the night’s e-mail, put on my shoes and jogged a little (a very little) came back and attacked the front terrace with pruning shears and saw. Cleared out all the errant saplings and great swathes of strangling or sticking vine. When I was finished and came inside to shower, it was not yet 8 AM.

Working hard on writing–perhaps harder than I’ve ever worked in my life, one project in one genre suggesting another in another. Wake in darkness, write, go to the gym, maybe paint a little, nap, write deep into night. . . .There’s a level of frenzy to it, as though I had to build up an oeuvre quickly, before it is too late. I keep expecting the sap to dry with time, but it does not, or at least has not.

The new owners of the Usual introduced themselves to us last night. They are trying very hard. Their task is tricky, though; DJ observed that it is like hosting somebody else’s party.

Returned to Cantaria– still bad music rendered with utmost perkiness, the problem which drove me out before. We have a couple of concerts where such a thing is called for, though, so I’ll be patient. Supper afterwards, and I was not anxious to be elsewhere. The sabbatical is already calming me down, opening me up to the slow unfolding of things.

The first moonflower bloomed last night. I saw its remnants when I went out in the garden this morning.