August 28, 2020

A pure white mushroom appeared in the pothos bowl in the kitchen. Now under it appears a fine, thick dust of white spoors.

Watching TV last night I hit the “mute’ button because I heard something strange. It came from the open back glass doors, the weak spot of the house’s defenses during the summer. I expected and feared a bear (though they are not nocturnal around here), but it was the gray tomcat from next door, finally making Maud’s acquaintance. I couldn’t tell by Maud’s attitude whether she was interested or apprehensive. When I shut the door, the tomcat stood staring at me for a while, as though trying to figure out my motivations. He must have noticed how I never bother him when he’s stalking through my garden, or sleeping at royal ease upon the grass.

Fatboy groundhog has churned the area under the door to the shed into a fine dust. This has created a dustbath for the birds, who now resort there in considerable numbers. Ecology at work.

 Alden Thompson–he must be 3 now– came over with his mother and roamed the garden for a while. Young Alden was keenly interested in anything mechanical– far more interested in the pump than the pond, far more interested in the air conditioner (though it wasn’t on) than the garden. “Would you please not put that back on,” he said of the fake stone over the pump, because he wasn’t finished looking at it. He begged his mother for five more minutes to look at this or that. I wonder how much of a child’s life is spent negotiating for things they cannot actualize on their own. 

Almost on a whim, I applied for a Guggenheim, to continue to address my cycle of American history plays. I’d intended to apply to do something else, but the plays were in my mind so heartily when I sat down to do the application that I succumbed. Kind friends agreed to do the recommendations. Begging recommendations has kept my from applying for things like this in the past, but it turned out to be easy. I won’t get it. I don’t receive that sort of thing, typically, but the mere act of applying was enlightening. I counted up 106 productions of my plays. Some of those were quite basic, but still the number is astounding, and I was prouder of my achievements than I would have been had I left them unexamined. 

Loutish teenage thrushes galumph across the front porch and through the grass, a successful season of generation.

Gemeniani on the CD

In the afternoon, warm hurricane rain, and after it blazing, wondrous heat.