February 19, 2013

It’s too dark to see whether the bad weather we were promised has materialized.

To the doctor about my ears. As I suspected, nothing, no infection, no visible damage. I knew before I went that there would be no remedy but the thing I have least of– patience.

Yesterday was a day of unnecessary warfare. I fought Kirk on the schedule, realizing only later I was fighting about the wrong semester. I believed myself fighting the administration through him, but it won’t appear that way to anybody. I think the administration must realize that doctrine must–sometime–give way to practicality, but semester follows semester and its micro-managing naivete worsens. Of course, my blows go wide, because I do not dedicate myself to justice full time.

I’d kept the rehearsal schedule web page loaded up on my school computer for several days, not renewing it, so when Christ School was named as last night’s rehearsal venue, I did not see it. I went to the dark church on Liberty Street and then called Nathan, who informed me of what I had already guessed by then, that the rehearsal was at Pingree Auditorium. Thus began a very curious episode. I knew in one instant that I would make it in time–though it is a very long way to the end of Sweeten Creek in Arden–and that all would be well. That was, in fact, the lesson the universe was trying to teach me, as it had a hundred times before: however blocked and ragged and late and disastrous, things pretty much turn out as they should. But that didn’t set aside the rage. I felt the rage was necessary, that the “lesson” was an imposition, a tyranny on the part of the universe, and that it would be taught instead not to test me. So I raged south, knowing all would be well, but also determined not to be taught that lesson. It seems odd now. It didn’t seem odd then. I literally wept with frustration when I caught the train at Biltmore, which slowed and finally stopped, blocking the road. I whirled around and took the back way and was finally on Sweeten Creek. I missed the turn-off for the school, as I knew I would. The school road would never end. I searched frantically for the auditorium. I ran inside. As I knew somewhere inside me from the first, I’d missed nothing I couldn’t catch up on in five minutes. No one said a word. The rest of the rehearsal was disordered, but it had nothing to do with me. I think I was analyzing this episode in my dreams. I certainly analyze it now. I have spent whole nights shouting “NO!” at God. I think I’m a hero. Onlookers (were there any) would probably think me some kind of deranged brat. Right now I think they’re right, but, in all honesty, I don’t know what to do about it. I know all there is to know about non-attachment and the great length of time things have in which to come out well, but in the hour of fury, none of that knowledge avails.

At the railroad crossing, one car left a gap so people could still get out of the restaurants and head north up Biltmore away from the train. When that car turned back, a police cruiser moved up and made sure that gap was blocked, so everybody was trapped.

Alison has had her baby.

The cats flank the computer screen like sphinxes.