August 2, 2011

Watched the garden heave from beneath, what was surely a mole digging about, happy in his invisibility. The plants were being lifted quite high, and they seem to have sustained no damage. Watered, worked-out. Weeded deeply, getting a sunburn atop my sunburn. Sense of accomplishment in me now that I prefer not to investigate. Kat Williams has come aboard as Venus in Vance. If she can act as she can sing, we’re golden. Stopped to see Justin in the daycare center at the Woodfin Y. It was a joy to see him again. The children gathered around when I came in. I thought of the cats, because of the similar frankness and innocence. One tiny boy handed me his brother’s shoe. One girl took it back again. The girl was– I don’t know what to say– back in the unenlightened days we would have used the word “spastic”–I saw her with her brothers out in the summer light, taking her time and going the longest way in the world to get into the van, and I uttered such a prayer for her, out of the briar patch of the heart, snagging every briar on the way.. Take her. . . mend her. . . something. . . anything. . .and in the middle of that grief I was overcome by something that felt like grief but wasn’t. I realized I was praying in extremis for someone other than myself. My selfishness had been proud and unexamined–no, obsessively examined, but perversely–for so long. This was a sudden freedom and a blessing that left my emotions shattered. I tried to bless the sad little girl but she blessed me more. I have no idea what to do with this world,

Stee’s package returned after its travels. Still mysterious why there was a surcharge at the other end. Think I won’t open it, maybe hang it as art just as it is.