October 3, 2018

One golden persimmon hangs from my persimmon tree.

Spectacular class on Shelley. 

Heroic gardening– Mount Hood daffodils planted, one raised bed fully prepared.

Thoughts on the massage table: the boy who took me to a sleazy hotel in Syracuse. I lied when I told him my name. He was very sweet and beautiful. On the way home I plucked a louse from my hair.

I was incredibly young. It was my bedroom on Goodview Avenue. Mt little lamp was on and I kneeling at my bedside. Mom and dad stood in the doorway, looking at me. They were teaching me how to pray, “Now I lay me down to sleep. . . God bless mommy and daddy and grandma and. . .” But the thought in my mind, clear and hard at that very hour was, “How odd these people are, and what an odd thing they’re asking me to do. But, if I’m here, I have to get along, so I will do what they ask, and smile and be child-like, for that is how it is done.”  How early is the recollection? Impossible to tell. But all my earliest recollections share the conviction that I had been cast among strangers, and had to conceal and adapt cunningly in order to survive.