January 3, 2019

Re-reading the volume of Tennyson my parents gave me for my 13th birthday. To see the inscription on the front page in my mother’s exquisite handwriting is a little shocking. I see why Tennyson appealed to me as a kid. His early poems are clearly inspired by simply being alive and having discovered a vocation as a poet. Everywhere one turns is a possible poem. Let’s write a poem about a Merman. Done! Let’s think of all the girls we know and write a poem for them. Done! It’s exactly the impulse that drove me. My first poem came a week short of three years after receiving that book.

Painted on Daniel’s landscape. New people are moving into the Mechanic, altering most of the second floor. My new next door neighbor beat my paintings to the floor hammering on his wall, then tried to steal my pitiable ribbon of exterior wall space. I think that is set right.

Bought airfare and housing for my sojourn in Portland. Had the pleasure of deliberately choosing ANYTHING but American Airlines.

The only Christmas trees still up are in the houses of Episcopalians.

Katherine Min, dying, writes beautiful essays about the process of dying.

Rudy DiDonato, my high school counselor, has died. Fifty-one years ago I asked him “How can I go to Harvard?” and he said “You can’t. Nobody from Ellet has ever gone Ivy League.” I believed him. I assumed there was some sort of rule. He called me in later– Jim Mottice recruiting from Hiram was in his office-- and he said, “Hiram is the closest we ever get to Harvard.” And so that’s how all that happened. This cannot be mentioned amid the eulogies piling up from my classmates on Facebook. They all agree he was nice. He was.

Rehearsal, then jollity at the Wayside.