January 4, 2017

Went to the movies by myself, which I have not done in time out of mind, not being as interested in cinema as an art form, or a medium of entertainment, as I once was. This was a case of having learned too much about how it works to love it wholly. Anyway, saw La La Land, which has been getting great reviews and which I liked well enough, but rather less than I think I was meant to. Drifted out of the present and thought of other things, for a while convinced that my little dog Bimbo, dead these forty years, was lying on my lap and all was somehow mysteriously well. I was glad for the dark then. Thought of my parents, and how I would have been a better son had I but known, had I any way or means of knowing, that I was being a bad one. Maybe everybody goes to the movies to think of something else.

My longtime friend Yvette Grimes is dead. She said when we met in DC that I reminded her of Thor. When I think of her I think of violets. Maybe it’s the name.

Tremendous wind. Having lived thirty years with a giant sweet gum or a giant white pine in the backyard, I’m always praying mercy from the Lord of Wind.

Just as I typed that, I remembered a prayer I prayed in the movie theater, one I don’t remember ever praying before. It was, Lord, let me go home.