December 3, 2012

Twilight. I always write at morning, before morning, and I’m having difficulty summoning the appropriate vocabulary.  The light I see through the study window at dawn would never be mistaken for the light through the same window at dusk. The light now is greenish gray, a little spent, like a happy child after a day of play. The past many nights one could follow the moon in its course from the front window over the roof to the windows in back. Pale light, pale gleam, the wood and weeds etched black and silver. Excellent morning at the studio. I made no visionary progress, but I decided what to do with old, problematic canvases, so when the new vision begins to unfold, it can do so unencumbered. Bought a Christmas tree, after having rather finally decided not do. Impulse must be preferred over decision. I think somewhere in the back of my mind was Lawrence the Fish, how it is his first year of life and he never had a Christmas tree. I’ll present this as a joke if I ever mention it aloud, though I’m not sure it entirely is. I had tree one year because Conrad was so sick, and I thought it might cheer him.  Forest scent in the rooms. I’ll decorate it tomorrow, maybe, or the day after. It can stand bare and pagan for the time. Something very youthful about the day; I feel happy and melancholy at the same time, the way I did when I was a kid. If all days could begin at the gym before dawn, continue at the Starbucks terrace as dawn was breaking, me writing away at a play in perfect harmony with the coming day and the passing voices, if I could buy a Christmas tree every day and have a sweet nap full of dreams that made me laugh out loud, then all might be well.  It is quite dark now. The moon has not risen, nor shall it for a time. My university mail was full of directives for things that HAD to be done today. We’ll, they weren’t, and nobody is the worse for it. Scolded for setting the Laurel Forum back wrong after the senior readings on Sunday. I thought I’d rather improved the plan, but–. I do feel as though it were thirty years ago. I have no idea why.