July 4, 2014

Cool morning, cool air flowing through the eastern windows. Yesterday was another day of excellent painting. I suppose that means the studio is set to burn. Limbs fell from the sweet gum at 62, and as I was sawing them in pieces to drag them away, I disturbed a yellow jackets’ nest. Several stings on my left hand, which still, maybe 18 hours later, smarts and tingles. My desire to wipe out the race of yellow jackets from the face of earth was probably not the outcome desired by that assembly of genes. When the attack began I felt affronted, thinking I had some special understanding with Nature, recalling that I had moments before gently replaced a praying mantis from inside to outside the house. The mantis was green as emerald. My birdbath, set where I can see it while lounging on the couch, provides sightings of multiple species: yesterday it was flicker, catbird, robin, mockingbird, purple finch, cardinal, sparrow. Looking at the price of airline tickets, prevented from buying only by exhaustion at the thought of actually getting on a plane. Wearing David Fraley’s T-shirt, thinking of him. Independence Day. I am the most independent person on earth: which has its good points, and its bad.