December 31, 2010

The past few days my literary energies have poured into the writing of my screenplay, Pillar of Fire, and the details I like to record of my life have waited, some of them lost irretrievably in the meanwhile. I tell my students that you never forget anything you’re meant to remember.

Outstanding review in Journal of Singing (Vol 67, No.2) of Frank Ferko and my Cyclamen. After quite a thorough exegesis the reviewer concludes it is a “beautiful and meaningful text.” The reviewer’s analysis of the music is too technical for me to appreciate, but the overall impression is very favorable. I would love to work steadily with a composer. I would love to set my own poetry. I used to write quite a lot of music, before I was hanging out with so many musicians, and the gap between their understanding of the intricacies of it all and mine shamed me into silence.

Burn the lights of the Christmas tree every moment that it’s dark, such as now, when the last dawn of the year is still an hour off. I look up and down the street and it’s the only one I see. Almost all the Christmas cards one receives are photos of the family. One is happy to keep up, but everything begins to sink under a chirpy secularization. What are our sacred things now? I’m not sure I know. Maybe I’ll spend time in the new year working for the re-sanctification of– something.

Hit the town last night. Saw The King’s Speech at the Fine Arts, then stopped at Sazerac for a drink. Said Happy New Year to John C and Matthew. A line of old people sat behind me at the cinema, One of them was deaf. This meant that when she made comments during the movie– which she couldn’t stop herself from doing–it was at a volume which would be for a normal person near to shouting. It also meant that no response cold be made only once:
WHAT DID HE SAY?
He said “bugger.” Now, you should stop talking.
WHAT??
He said “bugger.”
I DIDN’T HEAR YOU.
HE SAID ‘BUGGER,’ NOW PLEASE STOP TALKING.
I HEARD “BUGGER.” WHAT WAS THE REST OF IT?
Shhhh
WHAT??
It also meant she couldn't hear herself digging in her popcorn bag like a shovel into broken glass all thrugh the film.

Excellent sessions at the Y recently. In Christmas photos with my nephews I was too much older and too much heavier.

Driving home from Atlanta in the snow I had a mind-storm that I’ve not known how to put into words until now, and perhaps my words will be inadequate still. The odd thing was that holiday reading of Tolkien helped me into it. Christopher Tolkien makes the observation in The Peoples of Middle Earth that when the elves became aware of Sauron’s ring, they hid the three elven rings and, to keep them safe, made the everlastingly consequential choice that they should make nothing new, but only protect what was already made. For however thousands of years that was, the elves did nothing bold, but fought a long retreat, hoping to save the remnant. By contrast the fiery hero Feanor had risked all to forge ahead in a manner whose outcomes were unknown, but certainly perilous. Perhaps the elves had chosen the one in response to the terrible consequences of the other. Celebrimbor balancing Feanor, and each choice fraught with unforeseeable consequence. Anyway, I was pondering all this, when I realized that the choice of Feanor is always my choice, to a degree that the conservativeness of the elven lords afterwards is almost incomprehensible to me, as if it were a principle of debate and not a real option in the world. But I know most of the world would disagree with me on this.
So, as I was driving, I must have been turning this over in my mind, for with a jolt I realized that herein lies an explanation of my life. Far back in my childhood, lying in bed vibrantly awake, eyes brimming years, exultant far beyond any vocabulary I had then–or now– to describe it, I dedicated my life to love, and to a single love that has never wavered, however frayed by fury and disappointment, never explained itself to the laity, never known quite what it was beyond beauty and joy. Danger or mockery mattered not at all. Consequence mattered not at all, because I had found what in my life to love. I loved the spirit that came down to me on those nights. Was he an angel? Was he Shelley’s BEAUTY? I am happy to call him God, though what I mean by that word any more I am not sure. I have always called him God in my heart, though it is too secret–and embarrassing– to speak aloud. He was my Maud Gonne, my Beatrice, except one became a crone and the other died, whereas the love of my life is swift brave and and radiant forever. I became one who has dedicated himself not only to love, but to a love that required a certain kind of life, lived in a certain way, and fidelity to that choice has informed all my days. If your lover is God, there are certain things you do not do, and certain things you must do, and if I was sloppy and awkward at all this, it was because there was no precedent known to me to work from. I was learning it as I went. Things which were not worthy of him must be tolerated, of course, but never adopted, never accepted inwardly. His rules are not the world’s rules, and when I was writing poetry or singing in a choir or wrestling with sweaty boys in a Dublin sauna, all was the same, all sanctified by his imponderable example. I was set apart by love, given a destiny by love which I did not see clearly but which I groped toward every hour of the day. I loved the music that I loved because it seemed to be the music that surrounded the Descent. I loved poetry because poetry came to me almost with the Being’s first touch. People thought I was above myself because I wanted to go to museums and concerts, and perhaps I was, but I was pulled there by someone I loved and in desire for him I wanted to be as close as possible at all moments. I knew which things were of this love, and which things were not, and I provoked and puzzled those around me in my obstinate fidelity. I beat my way into a life of art when I seemed destined for a desk in an office like my father, because art was the nearest thing I could do which was like to him. I loved men both unwisely and well, for that it what I received from him, a passion overshadowing, transcendent, holy, shattering. They added only a body. Days and years were predicated on the awesome boldness of whispering yes to the presence in the room, vowing to follow wherever he lead.
There were times when I think I was the happiest boy in the world, and I could never tell anybody why.
In practical terms, when you’re looking for a mortal lover to mirror that radiant spirit, he has to be as much as possible like Him. The pursuit of heroes for your lover is beautiful, epic, but one must not be that surprised when it turns out. . . well, when it doesn’t turn out. When you are creating, you must create only, leaving publication to the powers of the world. On one level, this was a terrible, pervading error that I will pay for till then end of my days. On another it was simply right; it was what he did. He offered the beautiful thing, and one took it or one did not. How many ceilings opened to his dark, enfolding arms, and how many times was he turned away out of fear or conflicting values or just plain dullness? I would do the same as he. I could be as prodigal as earth, and let flowers bloom in hidden citadels of stone. I would create like no one created before, and leave creation at the roadside for anyone to pick up. That no one picked it up should have wounded me less than it did.
In recent years it has gone bitterly wrong, as love affairs do, and I have accused him of deception and cruelty. He is guilty of deception and cruelty, and no tribunal but repentance can wipe that clean. On the other hand, I lost my nerve. In a life which asked or sought no certainty, I came to a certain age–this one-- and realized I had none, no certainty, no palpable achievement, no family, no spouse in the flesh, no comfort, no provision for the time to come, no life as most people think of it. I panicked. I began grasping for things I never wanted before, assurances and supports and acknowledgments which are not of him, and were not of me until I grew afraid. Yet as long as I fixed on turning back to what was–or plunging forward to the paradise I thought we were seeking from the first-- as long as I fixed on bringing it all to the consummation I felt was just or right, there would be nothing for me but wrath and misery. He is wild; that’s why I loved him. Fairness, even kindness, was never part of it. I shouldn’t have deceived myself. He did not change. I did. I simply lived too long.
Driving in the blizzard, for whatever reason (perhaps mortal fear) I suddenly let go. The love affair was over. I began to sob, trying to drive through blinding tears. But the remarkable thing is they were not tears of sorrow at all. As I veered and skidded I was crying thank you. . . thank you. . . thank you, for I had lived a life bolder and more strangely beautiful than I could have imagined. I had dedicated myself with a hero’s valor, with a lover’s passion, and that it came to nothing is, ultimately, not the point. A more glorious interlude can scarcely be imagined. For a time–a very long time, now that I think of it–I was the lover of the power that shouts upon the mountain, that sings between the waves of the deep, and, in the face of that, disappointment in any mortal thing seems trivial. Thank you, thank you, I said. I still say it. When I drove into the parking lot across the street on St. Stephen’s Day, I was for the first time in fifty years free. Divorced. Widowed. I don’t know what to do with myself now, but I’m trying this and that, as any person suddenly single would. It is all right. Thank you. Thank you. From the bottom of the heart that is within my heart, thank you. And goodbye.

Angry note from Ste. I don’t know why. Something in my Christmas letter provoked hm. He said he should never have cooked Indian for me. He accused me of making lousy cauliflower curry, which is true.

Resolutions? I have already forgiven God for being the ruination of my life. I think that’s enough for now.