August 8, 2019

Drove to the Arboretum, used my membership the one time a year I usually do. The gardens sagged with the bold colors of autumn. I explored the Bonsai exhibit, where two women (in earlier years I would have noted “old women”) explained a little of that craft. Why so many hornbeams? It has small leaves. If you cut a branch back, it makes smaller and smaller leaves.  I’m not a fusser and Bonsai lies very high on the fuss list, but I thought the displays were fascinating. Maybe the swamp of tiny bald cypress was the best. Ate a sandwich, which I haven’t done in 90 days. Finished a read-through and revision of Jason of the Apes. 

How will I face my last ear as an academic? WILL it be my last year as an academic, or what shapes lie beyond the door? I think with a light heart and with joy, doing one last time what I have almost always liked. Title IX reduced to reason–as I think now– renews the light of everything. Did she know the darkness she cast around her? Did she care?