January 21, 2015

Morning, afternoon, and evening TV news led off with pictures of Ted’s house going up in flames. It was not a polite little kitchen fire, but engulfed the house and shot many feet above the roof. Horrified neighbors were interviewed. Sharp memories of the house and the wonderful things Ted had collected through the years, pianos and silver and glassware and the art of his dead lover. A horrible thing. I think his things were more than usually precious to him.

The Spanish Tragedy in drama class. You forget how good those things are in the forty years between readings. An online discussion made my buy on Ebay the Alice & Jerry books by which I learned to read. They were still present in my mind, and didn’t seem foreign at all. The first story I ever read by myself was about David and his three pairs of shoes and their various mishaps. It must have affected me in some way. I remember wondering if David was the character in all the books in my classmates’ hands, or if each one had a story with someone with his or her name as hero.

Anger before sleep at the iron bars, at the changelessness of all unbearable things.