June 17, 2018

Two night of beautiful moon– the first night inexpressible, the thinnest silver sliver in a blood-red twilight, Venus glittering just below. Last night over Biltmore Avenue, sharing it with brothers-in-song exiting from the Diana Wortham.  Cantaria’s 20th Anniversary concert came off, as these things often do, better than we had reason to expect. I myself kept in good voice, and my memorial poem was received with tears and approbation. The whole night was a crowd-pleaser. Even my legs and feet were not so bad off at the end as they would have been had we had done merely well.  Champagne reception at Blue Spiral afterwards. I think there were moments when, even musically, we transcended. 

Woke in the middle of the night from an awful dream. I kept ignoring my cell phone because someone I hated kept phoning me again and again. He had something on me. . . I owed him money or something . .  and I didn’t want to speak to him. I even gave my phone to Quinn to answer for a while, but he said, “You better talk to this guy before it becomes worse.” I startled awake. I lay in bed a long time wrestling with this problem, until I realized there was no such person and no such situation. Relief, but also confusion that I had been taken in by the fiction for so long.

Rose in the morning with sweet awareness of the concert being out of the way, and the rest of the summer pretty much mine. Joyfully weeded and joyfully watered in the morning light. As I did so, I noticed that something –raccoons I suppose-- had ripped the little basement ventilation windows out, leaving holes by which the basement could be entered. This house has been here 94 years– and I here in the last 4 of them-- and this had never happened. At the Blue Spiral reception I had a flash vision that someone was breaking into my house, but I assumed it was people. Looked in the basement for new tenants, but didn’t detect any. Went to Tru Valu, where a big red neck and I. . . it’s hard to explain. .  In the space of five minutes he was hugging me. Did I know him? He seemed to know me.  Moved on to Lowe’s, where their inefficiency bordered on a debacle once again. Sent me to the wrong door to pick up my blocks, etc. But when I finally got to the right place, was befriended by the two (again giant) rednecks who loaded my truck. Strange, immediate male affection. I felt blessed, but also perplexed. Lord, I said under my breath, I don’t understand this, but I will take it. Their tale of how if they see someone shoplifting they are not allowed to do anything about it led to an account of some black people attacking a security guard on a video, and that led to a rather emotional and eloquent dissertation by the bigger one on how things are falling apart and maybe we need fewer freedoms and a little more order. There, from someone I already liked, came support of Trump and his tactics (though the name was not mentioned) that may have been ignorant, but was certainly not evil, and certainly heart-felt. I’ve been Ancient Marinered twice this week. Betty at Tru Valu was of the opinion that the ‘coons were after food and, not finding any, will not return. My inclination is to take her wisdom until it happens again.

Green persimmons on my persimmon tree.