September 25, 2010

Rain, not generous, but sufficient, as much as I would have sprayed on with a hose, anyway, and more generally distributed.

Trying to get ready for my trip, the effort multiplied by the fact that Matthew will be here remodeling the bathroom while I’m gone. I cleaned out the bathroom cabinets so they could be moved out of the way, and found a jar of Noxzema from when I lived in Syracuse. It had separated into a pool of white liquid lying amid rounded white mountains. Cold cream from the same time (I was doing a lot of theater) was dry and cracked as a white desert. Found a vial of musk scent I bought in New Orleans in 1981. Kept it: still potent. The shelves were lined with newspaper from May 3, 1992. I will have students in the spring younger than my former shelf paper.

Rose when the sky was just paling and stood on the porch. A big spider was weaving, seemingly midair, suspended from the porch roof, only her silhouette visible. She was graceful, purposeful, concentrated on a complicated task I couldn’t do given a year of tries. The Lord blessed her again and again in the skill of her movements. I saw her again a few minutes ago. She’s big, fat, her two back legs striped black and muddy yellow, her six front legs striped red and black. I sense something from her, a presence, an intention unlike my own, but not fully unintelligible.

Strange revelation in the midst of the day: God created man to be His teachers. Our duty is not to obey God, but to teach him. We are the one mind in the world not His own, and He watches us, listens to us, to find out what He has done.