January 6, 2014

Epiphany. Moan of winter outside.

Packing renewed access to things I had misplaced, among them albums containing photos from my childhood and backwards to photos of my parents’ families, and beyond to photos of people I should know, but don’t. They’re lasers lighting up sectors of my brain. There is the cardboard false fireplace with the firelight made by a kind of windmill atop a Christmas light, and the china that only appeared at Christmas, a Prussian blue bowl with fruit on it–painted and raised–and two candlesticks. The livingroom carpet was deep green with cream colored shell-like shapes on it. Vivid as yesterday; it was Christmas 1956, Me looking at a candle on my first birthday, in a cake in the shape of a heart that mother made for me. It is the only time when utter bliss was recorded in a photograph of me. Where is that pan? The blue bowl with the fruit on it? I think if I could find them, have them, something would be different, something would be better.  I can follow the path back beyond that, even, but it stops, and there is a hazy darkness I know I can get beyond if I keep my mind open, one finger of it forever probing that shadowy door. If I could feel what I felt at first, if I could wear the face I wore in the photo, lit by the single light–

Afternoon: First load to Riverside Drive. They were rehearsing a play in the space across the hall. I will be able to fill a room with nothing but journals and notebooks.

Session with Cameron in person and the credit bureau person and various bankers on the phone. I was a crabby, uncooperative bitch, and I don’t know exactly why.

Kathy St. John has died of cancer.

Took down the Christmas tree, a chore less melancholy than in most years past. That is a very good sign. Water spilled from the stand when I dragged it onto the porch, and froze instantly.

Packing, I came across my old journals, including the first one of all, which began on this night in 1969. It was the beginning of my second quarter at Hiram. I’d left all my poetry at home when I went to school, and avoided writing any, thinking the serious application of college should not include poetry. That resolution went exactly three months.  I mentioned my classes, feeling my way toward some voice, some idiom, toward which I still feel my way today.

Unscrewed the hose from the outlet in preparation for the cold. A drop of water got on my glove, and when I touched the wall of the house to steady myself, the drop froze the glove to the aluminum in one second.  Atlanta is colder than Anchorage.

A day of exhaustive physical and emotional labor. Everything took an extra step. Things really do not need to be so hard. The idea of someone helping me is one I have forgotten how to entertain. But it would be nice.