September 2, 2012

ACB remembered my father as gentle and kind. She said “all the other adult men in the neighborhood were gruff. Your father wasn’t.”

The golden boy climbed onto the roof and fixed the leak–so we think until the rains come–in fifteen minutes. I had worried about if for six months. I introduced him to the cats, and he thought Circe was a nice name. Being the Village Explainer, I said, “Circe is a witch in the–“
”I know,” he said from under his golden thatch. “I read.”

SC sang “Happy Birthday” to me over the phone.

Slept through most of my birthday, as though a wish I’d uttered long ago to be turned into a cat were being fulfilled. Did write a story in the morning, which turned out to be about my father. The last two years I bought a vehicle on my birthday; no such thing was going to happen this year, but there had to be something to commemorate the day, so I bought a set of Italian wine glasses at an antiques store under where I used to have my studio at the Candle Station. Also Rosetta Stone collections for French and German, to honor the passion for languages which has come upon me late, but, I hope, not futilely.

In the afternoon I met MN and his wife J, who are here for a wedding, and took them on a brief tour of the area, including a chunk of the Parkway, my studio, Biltmore Ave and Pack Square downtown. M’s kindness is what I remember from high school, and that has deepened with the years. Also noted that I have no domestic conversation, they almost nothing but. This is not a criticism of either side, but rather a source of wonderment. I learned–happily–the ins and outs of their complicated family histories. The N's always live in a clump, like an old Italian princely clan, and when one moves, the others move too, until the same proximity is achieved in a new neighborhood. I envy this. They bought me dinner in the midst of the hubbub on Pack Square, and we were all happy. I told M I remembered him from his first day in first grade, a transfer from another school. He was small (I felt myself wanting to protect him from the newness of it all) and had wondrously dark hair. He was the first human to whom I remember applying the adjective “beautiful.” I recall the moment clearly.  I’d opened a new door of perception with that unuttered, but fully considered, word “beautiful.”  They, husband and wife, had a perilous and heroic courtship one would not guess at regarding their extreme domesticity today. I’ve no idea what they learned of me. I don’t recall saying much about what I’ve seen and done. What would I have said? In the sense they would recognize, I have had no life at all.

Last night’s moon was even lovelier than the night before’s.