Farmington Vespers

 

July 23, 2021

Having all day every day I can’t explain why I still miss days writing here.

Got a haircut, upon which everyone remarks. Six (of course I counted) people have observed since the reawakening of public life that I look “great” or “much younger.” J watched me lumbering up to AGMC rehearsal and said, “I didn’t recognize you. I thought you were a much younger man.” Abstinence is not yet extended enough for me to put this down to stopping alcohol. In any case, as far as body and function, with alcohol and without it so far seems exactly the same. Clearly, I had not become dependent. 

Wandered downtown–bustling and brightly lit, though a little murky from burning California. Bought shoes, realizing that otherwise I would have to wear sneakers to Daniel’s wedding. Wandered into two new galleries. One, the Momentum, is owned by my old friend J and his wife. Bought a John Cleaveland painting called Farmington Vespers 2021, a crescent moon in a dark forest, the sort of thing I was always trying but never got right. This house isn’t actually great for hanging art, but we’ll find a way. 

MT came to visit yesterday afternoon. The boy can talk. His spiritual journey continues in ways that seem to one like me both laudable and unembarrassable. Among his stories was the one where my class on “Ode to a Nightingale” saved him from thoughts of suicide. In fact, much of what he said was a paean to my poetry classes, wherein he learned how to read poetry and unlock it as a source of wisdom and inspiration not available either at the pulpit or the therapist. He may have come here to say just that, the Holy Spirit prompting him that I need to hear such a thing at just this point in time, when I am too tempted to look back on my career as a teacher as a loss. 

Present cause of fury is that I can’t seem to type a sentence without a typo. That last one was flawless, as if to mock my concern.