August 28, 2021

Supper last night at the Smoky Park Supper Club (which I joined and am now a member of) with Ed and Rosemary, a celebration of Ed’s and my birthdays, three days apart. It was a lovely evening. They are people of wide and engaging interests and we had much to talk about. Plus, there’s common history in Ohio going back in our families before our births. A waitress who served us for years at Avenue M recognized me and informed me she’s going to graduate school in fiction writing at Spaulding. Another server asked is I was who I am and I said I was, and she said she’d been in my class twenty years ago. What was gratifying was the look of genuine astonishment on her face (what I could see above the mask) when she said, “You haven’t changed one bit!”  I certainly feel changed, but not to look it so much is a blessing. 

Rose early and set out by car, not knowing I was going to the Arboretum until I got there. Overcrowding is a real issue everywhere in Asheville, now, even at the edges of the Great Wood. But I managed a hike that afforded at least intervals of solitude. Beautiful pale green grove of birch. Roadsides like a Persian carpet. Two sweaty lesbians gave me their map. 

Dedicating several days to the celebration of my birthday--