October 29, 2021
Sang for Robin Boylan’s funeral. The church and the hall were packed with hundreds of respect-payers. His daughter gave a supreme remembrance. Everyone looks so elegant in black.
Sound of creatures in the attic beyond the office walls. I imagine it to be bears, but I suppose only squirrels could actually get in. Tumult in the chimney as well. Really bad weather makes them seek shelter of this kind. So far screaming and pounding have sufficed.
October 28, 2021
Spent the morning stuffing envelopes for the church pledge campaign. I can be a machine.
Never EVER give anyone the benefit of the doubt or assume a “professional” is on the ball. Weeks ago the pool guys removed my motor, promising to replace it, and today when I finally called to inquire, the owner said, “I was just now contemplating the motor, wondering whose it was and what I was supposed to do with it.”
Walgreen’s does not have, and may not get for a long time, the antibiotic I need– I think I’m not overstating the case–to keep on living. It’s an interesting world.
Can’t get an appointment to fix my breaker until December. You’re not supposed to rage against things that can’t be helped, but I wonder what else there is to rage against.
October 27, 2021
Sent the formatted The Ones with Difficult Names to Kelsay. For the moment, nothing to do but wait.
The turkeys strutted into my garden late in the morning, and were still there at 4. They may be there now.
Feeling odd and vulnerable, as though I neglected some important duty, but can’t remember what it was.
Anxiety about the Holy Land alternates with excitement. My anxiety has to do with the flights, with delays and problems with my vaccine documentation, etc: things I am, at this moment, simply making up.
One truth arising from my professional experience? Anyone who says, “Trust the Process” is up to something.
October 26, 2021
Put on a shiny yellow shirt– like a sports uniform top-- that I’ve had for decades and never worn. It’s smooth and comforting against the skin. Trying to figure out why I never wore it. I imagine long neglected garments sighing with relief when they’re finally pulled out of the drawer.
News report of an Ingles employee fleeing from and being shot at by a perp at Ingle’s on Merrimon. I in fact heard the shots– 4: 2, space, then 2 more–and wondered what was happening. Life in the city.
Took my newly delivered phone to the Spectrum office at the Mall, where my data was transferred by a charming young man named Cain, who just graduated from Pisgah High (we commiserated on the loss of his senior year of football) and, having landed the job with the phone people, bought a house near his parents in Haywood County. I tell people I don’t miss the university, and it’s true, except for the parade of young people past my desk, their various beauties and strengths and webs of dreams. When I got back to the car I prayed mightily for the continued well being of curly-headed and cologne effusing Cain.
October 25, 2021
Perfect storm of apparatus failure: the microwave caused a breaker in the kitchen to flip, and it cannot be flipped back; printer refuses to print, or does so only after negotiating a maze of error messages; new phone refuses to charge. Went to the Mall and began the process of getting a new phone (much less exasperating this time than the last; it all depends on who’s manning the desk) got, after 3 tries, the battery changed on my watch; began moving appliances away from the exploded circuit to ones that still work. Sat in the empty Food Court and had beef teriyaki while I waited for my watch battery to be changed.
But before this, when the light was barely the light, I went to back garden and dug up peonies that had been overshadowed by other things and moved them to open space in the front. Planted new roots around them, and daffodils between the roots. Hard work first thing.
Worried whether I’ll have the stamina for the Jerusalem trip. I tire fast, and though I recover, my days are over early.
October 24, 2021
Pat Verhulst is dead.
Maud comes to me when I sit at the downstairs desk and makes me hold her while she purrs and purrs. It is the most necessary thing that happens in my day.
Gospel reading was of Bartemeas the blind beggar. Will asserted that he was the perfect disciple because he cried for help, “Son of David! Have mercy on me!” If that is the case, I too am a perfect disciple.
Online fundraising gala for Red Hen. People talking about their books should be more fascinating to me than it is. I love hearing the STORY of their books, but that’s almost never what they choose to talk about. Maud appeared repeatedly in the ZOOM screen and aroused comment.
October 23, 2021
From The Asheville School:
Leiner, Kathy Meyers <Leinerk@ashevilleschool.org>
Fri, Oct 22, 3:56 PM (16 hours ago)
Hello David,
I hope you are well. We look forward to seeing you tonight and having a seat reserved. We are happy to accommodate any guests too.
Thank you for your work. Our students and faculty have responded with such enthusiasm to your play. Tonight might be a light audience since many students and faculty came on Wednesday and Thursday due to sporting obligations. But, our cast and crew are thrilled that you are coming to the performance.
I wish I could bottle up the responses for you to hear. Please know the impact on our community has been so rewarding to witness. I am grateful John found your play and brought it to our stage.
I have gone down quite the research rabbit hole and found so much inspiration from your glimpse into the lives of the women of Washington Place. My research led me to create a lobby display that shares some background on the event and honors those lost in the fire.
We hope you will join us for cake and conversation with the cast after if you have time.
See you soon!, Kathy Leiner, Chair of Fine Arts, Dance Program Director, Graham Theater Manager
Asheville School
The production was quite good–polished, one might say, in ways not necessarily expected from a secondary school. The actress playing Yetta could walk unblushing onto a college stage. The actress playing Gussie could, too. She chose over-the-top–which turned out to be workable. Essie and Lucia had beautiful singing voices. The sets and SFX were quite professional– though set-pride caused scene changes to be longer than they needed to be. I kept thinking “school,” where the techies and set designers need to have triumphs as well. A beautiful set of the skyline of New York from the roof was pretty much unnecessary, as the whole seen could have been played abstractly on one of the ample wings. No matter, it was gorgeous on its own, and one heard gasps from the audience. Maybe no one but me minded the wait, the bumping and scraping behind closed curtains. The actress playing Rosario was an international student (Japan, I think) and for the most part could not be understood. She was also clearly terrified. Everyone wore a mic, which meant from time to time mics would be rubbing on costumes or would go out when the connection flagged for a second. Projection and elocution must have fallen from the syllabus– I observing that projection and elocution are pretty much what a playwrights thinks are most necessary. Just say the words, it will be all right. The overall experience was solid, gratifying, and inspiring. It appeared the kids thought so too.
I arrived early, of course, and sat in the parking area watching sunset on Mount Pisgah from a direction unfamiliar to me, one in which it appeared flat and smooth, like a stage set of tremendous size and remoteness.
When the air warmed enough I was outside, gardening. Front garden trimmed of its spent, giant cosmos and Mexican sunflowers, the raised bed moved, and about 50 square feet opened up to cultivation. I’m running out of things to plant. Terribly bitten by ants I didn’t know I’d disturbed.
October 22, 2021
Unexpected frenzy of housecleaning, brought on by finding mildew on some wallets I’d stored in a drawer. Unexpected satisfaction. Days like days in a movie of the Perfect Life, blazing and yet clement. I’d not filled the feeders since spring, so the birds are slow in coming back. The downy woodpecker will not just fly onto the dish, but must climb up the pedestal and into the dish, as though it were a tree. I realize I’ve been a vegetarian for about a month, not on purpose, but because when I think of what I want to eat it has been vegetables. More corn-on-the-cob than in the last decade.
October 21, 2021
Praying mantis longer than my hand on the dining room window.
Beautiful moon lo these many nights, my back garden a bowl of profound blue just before daybreak.
The kids at Asheville School sent me a card with their names and little messages. I’ll go to see the show tomorrow tonight. The kid playing Avi acknowledged my foreshadowing-with-a-hammer. If you’re not around high school kids, you forget they’re different from us. Rawer, with thinner skin needing less of a touch to send out sensations. Now that I have no students and my friends aren’t interested, I face the remainder of my time going to these things alone.
Meeting with Katie and my director, whose name may return to me before I finish writing. They both saw the play’s weaknesses (though they didn’t put it that way) and made sound suggestions. Primarily, it gives me time to rewrite the damn thing. “Writing” in any sense is a jubilant word for me today, as I’d gone through a time of not being interested in writing and not being able to think of anything to write. Sitting down to play with the beach novel brought me out of that, as I figured it would. When I’m not writing the days drag on; when I am, there never seem to be enough hours between sleep and sleep.
October 18, 2021
Blazing perfect autumn day. Fed my (now eight) flock of turkeys from the bag of corn I bought for them.
Reread The Frankenstein Rubrics in preparation for our meeting tomorrow. It may be the worst play I’ve ever written. It’s like someone else’s first work, full of quips and ironies and the scintillant absurdities which stand in the mind of the young for depth. Clever, witty, directionless. But will I cancel the production? No, of course not. Indifference has so often greeted what I thought were masterpieces, maybe the irony will endure and what I consider a bit of an embarrassment will triumph.
October 17, 2021
Attended three services at All Souls today, to give my Stewardship Testimonial.
This is the Sunday when we announce the Joyful Season of Pledging and Stewardship, and I am its Herald Angel. Our Stewardship Theme this year is WHY I GIVE, and In succeeding weeks you will hear from this lecturn and read in the Parish Epistle the testimonies of your peers sharing why they give and why we earnestly urge you to do so as well. In order to share my Why I Give story, I must begin with confession. You may have thought the desire to be a superhero ends with adolescence. My confession is that it does not. My unshared and only partially coherent desire to be Superman or Wonderwoman or Thor righting the wrongs of the world has been compromised partially by my lack of any powers whatever. By when I nevertheless imagine myself one of these figures, I realize I wouldn’t do much good because I seem never to be where there are wrongs to be righted. I’m never the first at the burning building or at the bus hanging over the edge of the bridge. I’m never there when the purse is being snatched. To adapt the metaphor slightly, I want to one of the saints of God, but I am bewildered as to how to do so. My life has turned out so that–and I give thanks for this–I am almost never at the point of greatest need. I cannot by myself heal the sick or uplift the downtrodden or comfort the fearful–not very much, anyway– so I must rely on somebody who can, somebody who is there when the storm hits or the famine lays waste or the homeless freeze under the bridge. This is where our beloved Cathedral comes in. I trust the corporate wisdom and compassion of this parish to allow me to do good even when I can’t find the occasion myself. All Souls knows where the need is, better than I ever could, and puts my resources there. I read over the list of grants the Outreach Committee intends to make this year, and I realize I knew exactly one of the recipients. This is exactly right. My money will reach need that I never could find on my own. The Cathedral does good, searches for good to do, parries the Adversary way beyond my personal vision and capabilities. So, I give to support this extraordinary building and the our excellent clergy and staff and the beautiful music Kyle provides week after week, but also to do the good I couldn’t find on my own. I write my check to stand for my Christian concern when I cannot be there myself. To a child putting a slice of bread into her mouth, or a mother with a home after months of living on the street, I am, by the simple act of making a pledge, a saint of God, a superhero.
At 7:45, John’s homily concerned the moment when the sons of Zebedee try to make Jesus promise to seat them at his right and left hand in Glory. He pointed out that some vaingloriousness (such as that of James and John at that moment) is pretty obvious. Other types are not: the lust for honor, for instance. Bullseye I do not lust after riches or power, but I realized at that moment that I do lust after honor, and that a huge proportion of my daily energy is involved in fulfilling that almost unfulfillable desire: admire my work, mention my work, read my book, comment on how well I sounded at rehearsal, give me that prize, remember how smart I am, what a great writer I am. . . .if I calculate how much of the sorrows of a day arise from frustration at not receiving these honors, on some days the tally would reach nearly 100%. I sat there dumfounded with recognition, realizing simultaneously that I have no idea how to pull back from that obsession. How is it different from fighting for a place for my work in the world, which I have thought of as a sacred duty? I suppose one can do one’s best work and then calmly let the world decide its fate, but I rebel against that as a job half done. I rebel deeply, perhaps irrevocably. Some power other than my own will have to lead me toward this particular light.
Almost unendurable pain in my legs caused me to stumble about this morning like a centenarian. Aspirin took it away in a matter of moments. That is miraculous to me, and makes me feel foolish that I forget and leave the house incapacitated.
Intended to go to Marilyn Keiser’s organ recital at 4. Woke up from my afternoon nap at 4:20.
October 15, 2021
Woke to find the back yard littered with somebody else’s garbage, which a bear had dragged from the apartments’ dumpster through the lilac tunnel to devour in safety in my garden. Retch-inducing clean-up. Since I was in the garden already, entered the biggest gardening day of the fall, transplanting iris and canna and lily-of-the-Nile and opening a huge space for the ironweed and joe-pye I hope to sow in the spring. Great yellow ropes of roots endure from the black walnuts which have been gone for seven years. Fine feeling on my skin, the sun hot but never too hot. I felt like a healthy animal.
October 14, 2021
Early to the Toyota dealership to get a once-over that the car evidently didn’t need, but at which time it was brought to my attention that my hubcaps had been stolen. $36.95 apiece used– but still petty, in my estimation. The creepy part is someone stealing onto my property in the dead of night and having free access to everything. Talked with the cute ginger salesman who said they barely saw new cars any more, and the ones that do arrive are gobbled up instantly. Supply line deficiencies everywhere.
Since I was close already, drove my hubcapless car to the Parkway and walked the Hard Times south from Bad Fork. At the dusty plaza before the tunnel, a guy had set up a workshop and was repairing his bike. Farther down the road, another guy had pulled over to the side and was playing music very loudly from how white pick-up. The effect of that was surprisingly sweet, though, lilting Bluegrass tunes in the golding wood.
Very few at AGMC rehearsal. I was–in effect– the lone bass. My secret is that I like that. I’ve about had my fill, though, of singing through a mask.
October 13, 2021
No longer needing to rise at 5 for class, I forget that the hours of morning before daybreak are my favorite time. Rose today in the dark and took the Riverwalk. The river gleamed from the lights on the other side of it. Some botanical perfume that I couldn’t place suffused the atmosphere. A man slept on a bench with his bike tied by rope to his foot. As I turned to go back to the car, the birds began their dawn song. Light gleamed in the Phil Mechanic where my last studio was. It made me think again what a strange interlude that was, like a bad marriage, hopeful, dedicated, full of dreams, in extent of time and expenditure of energy indeed like a marriage. I do not know what possessed me. I wanted to be a painter. I did find the painter inside, but he had nothing to do with the world in which I actually live. So, again, hail & farewell to all that.
My flock of turkeys is down to seven. I sat on the back porch as they marched into the garden. They are very distinct personalities. One picks meticulously over a space another raced over on her way somewhere else. One flops down in the sun and takes a dirt bath in the ground I opened up, picking at only the bugs and seeds she can reach from where she lies. Some fly over the gate, some squeeze through the bars. One leaps to get berries and seeds just out of reach; the others let them be. Two fly into the low branches of a dogwood; the others do not.
October 12, 2021
Columbus Day, which has become Indigenous Peoples Day. I was fascinated with Indians as a kid, especially by the Erie and Mingo and Natchez, credited by boyhood reading with sophisticated cultures long before European interference. Repeated readings of Hiawatha instilled a certain attitude which, if problematic, was respectful and creative. Could scarcely believe when I moved to Syracuse that our own sad Onondaga Lake had been Hiawatha’s home.
Second day of grunt gardening. Continued excavating, transplanted peonies that were not happy where they were, planted allium, broomed the summer’s spider webs off the sides of the house.
October 11, 2021
Fell out of bed last night. Lying on the floor I thought “What an odd thing to do!” Thee times in my life I remember falling out of bed.
Dream that T and L visited me, and I was showing them my far-flung house (not this one at all), worrying that they’d have to leave before they saw everything. A mountain stood far in the distance, flat and shapely, like the Devil’s Tower, but far larger. That was Ireland.
People speak to me at church as they didn’t before, maybe because of my making the announcements at the beginning of service. I don’t know anybody behind their masks.
Working hard to get The Ones with Difficult Names ready for publication. The instructions from the publisher are at once quite precise and distressingly vague.
Morning spent in heroic gardening, re-digging the central back garden to replant and restore. I have a pile of iris and canna bulbs for replanting. Decided to dig out the big tree wisteria, which has prospered without much blooming, and become little more than a gigantic weed. The roots are long, insidious, and a little sickening, like flabby red limbs. Tugged out two long bamboo runners that led from the bamboo stand right into the garden, eight feet or more each pulled with some satisfaction out of the ground, like thread through cake. Disposal will be interesting this winter, given a couple of stands of nine foot tall cosmos that cannot be uprooted but must be dug (I tried), and two patches of Mexican sunflowers the heft of small trees. Tony, from Mexico, did not recognize the Mexican sunflowers. Unexpectedly large Mexicans came for my pond pump, so maybe that chore will at last be done.
October 9, 2021
Days of remarkable rain. I actually welcome them, as they allow me to work indoors without a sense of regret.
Writing yesterday I heard a bang downstairs. I knew it was likely bears, but it didn’t sound like window glass or a shattering door, so I wasn’t too alarmed. Went down to find five bears in my yard– cavorting is the proper word. One big cub had another backed into the driveside lilac wrestling for dear life. Ruth Bader Ginsbear found the peanuts I’d put out for the birds, and the old eggs I’d put in the garden for the crows. Two adolescents had joined mama and her two– it was like a mother taking the neighborhood kids to the park one afternoon. As one cub entered the front garden, a rabbit who had been hiding there rocketed out the other side. They moved at some speed. You think of the pace of bears being leisurely. It isn’t in the city. In her effort to get the peanuts, mama bear knocked a big planter off the porch (it’s unbroken) and someone overturned a birdbath onto several ceramic flower pots, smashing them. If your stuff is going to get broken, let it be by bears.
Went to the Asheville School yesterday afternoon to talk with the cast of Washington Place. The Italian and Jewish girls are mostly black and Asian, and Avi the New York Jew is black. I realized as I watched a bit of rehearsal that it didn’t make the difference I thought it might. Arrived in time to see a bit of the rehearsal of the fire scene. One of the actresses assured me that nobody on campus knows anything about the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and that the end will be a shock and a surprise. I’d forgotten what a large and imposing institution the Asheville School is– bigger than some colleges, certainly bigger than Hiram. Perhaps I’d never been there in daylight. The kids look happy and eager and welling with privilege.
D writes me a thank-you note wherein he assures me that the wedding was consummated during the honeymoon I contributed to.
JU apparently landed at Akron U.
October 7, 2021
Some spirit settled over me and I began Googling people and places I half remembered from my father’s home town, Brownsville. Found obituaries for a couple of the Despots, who lived on the farm across the street, including the mother and a kid (one year older than me) I used to hang out with, whom I lied to about my baseball prowess (which didn’t exits) because I figured he’d have no way of checking. We stayed there one Thanksgiving when grandma’s house was too full. Mrs Depot (their grandma) made me the best ham sandwich that ever was in the world out of their own slaughtered hogs (which I once watched them do). I envied the Despot boys because they could wander in the woods without ever leaving their own property. Tried to find grandma’s house by finding a lone house across the street from a farm, but things must have changed since then. Googled downtown Brownsville, which is a ghost town now, but was vibrant when I first knew it, and vibrant in my father’s memory. Looked for the McCrory’s and the Castle and the iron bridge, etc, which I remembered. Haven’t been there in sixty year.
October 5, 2021
Realize when I go out at evening and the front door is still locked that I have not left the house all day.
Binge-watched a Christo-Gothic Netflix production, Midnight Mass to 3 AM. Disturbing on so many levels, but also congenial, as I recognized the tenor of my own imagination so often in that of the writer’s. . . even the tendency to long exploratory monologs.
Spring birds back again, I suppose to reap the harvest of the seeds they watched me plant.
Memory: the root cellar my father had installed at the back of the garage on Goodview Avenue, the dank smell of it. Turns out it was never a very good place to store vegetables, which succumbed quickly to mildew. My father must have remembered such a thing with wonder from his own past. My father was an artist who never thought to use the word to describe himself.
October 4, 2021
Dear Professor--
I hope this finds you well. It has been about eight years since I've been in your classroom. You were an influential professor during my years at UNCA. I was really moved when you paid for my education eight years ago so I could graduate--this is something I will never forget--I am immensely grateful for this.
Due to funding issues I was unable to finish my licensure to teach elementary school at UNCA, but because of you I was able to obtain a degree in Poetry and a Bachelor of Arts. This has given me so much. As a teacher you always inspired me to see the beauty in life and to dedicate myself to hard work. I will always remember the classes I took with you at UNCA. Your enthusiasm for education and students has remained with me even after I graduated with my Bachelor in Arts. I enjoyed and respected your teaching style and all the lessons I learned in your class. Your happiness to teach is one of the characteristics that has stayed with me all these years. Even though I was unable to finish my licensure at UNCA I have never given up on my goal and dream to teach Elementary Education.
I am serious about my passion for teaching and want to become a teacher. I'm emailing you to see if you'd be willing to work with me to write a letter of recommendation on my behalf for The University of New York at Albany and The City College of New York-as these are my top choices. I am at the beginning of my enrollment process, and understand your time is valuable. Thank you so much for all the work that you do. It is my dream to become a teacher so I can help and inspire students like you did for me.
Sincerely,
LK
In a dream, DJ and I ran the marathon at the Olympics, though the dream marathon was largely tumbling and gymnastics and not that much running. DJ knocked himself out near the end, and I was given the honor of telling him he’d come in 2nd. I had dropped out of the race long before.
October 3, 2021
Rain. Sat listening to some animal have the run of my attic outside the walls of my office. It sounded big, bear-like, but maybe more realistically a raccoon. I suppose it would not be impossible to have a bear hibernating in there without my knowing, though an inspection of the outside reveals no hole to get in by. St Francis Blessing of the Animals day at All Souls. The congregation has not restored itself after Covid. The choir lingers at about half strength.
Received a royalty statement from Red Hen in July; still have received no check. It’s all right.
October 2, 2021
Today’s email from Sublime Press:
To whom it may concern,
Asheville School's drama department is planning on producing David Hopes' play Washington Place on Oct. 21st-Oct.23rd.
I'm writing to inquire about the royalty fees that we need to pay.
The auditorium seats 350. We do NOT charge admission for our productions.
Thanking you in advance for your immediate attention to this matter,
JC, Director of Music and Drama, Asheville School
And again:
JC, at Asheville School, was apologetic for the lateness of the request and immediately agreed to the full fee of $375 for three performances. He offered to pay instantly by credit card; but, I’m going to see if he can’t cut you a check, instead, so that you receive every penny. My initial, thoughtless response to the idea of high school kids acting such a play was that they could never hold a candle to our original cast. Then I thought, “My god, it’s perfect! These high schoolers would come pretty damn close to the ages of the characters.”
SS
September 29, 2021
Found the body of a dead mole in the garden.
Walked in the fog before dawn along the river. Met SL upon his bike. I was happy to see him. He’s all that remains in the Phil Mechanic. He’s having woman trouble again. He said the woman he lived through Covid with is ghosting him now. At least my life has deflected that precise trauma. His daughter Ismay is now his son Adrian.
Saw a cormorant flying up the French Broad.
A single goose flying up the river honked and made the valley walls reverberate so he sounded like a whole flock.
Managed to get all the chores I needed to do done by 10 AM.
