November 27, 2022
Disturbing vivid dream last night: L and I live in a huge mansion high on a hill in the midst of a city. We are attacked be a succession of big men dressed as women, who come onto the porch and try to invade the home. I manage to fight them off, but wonder how, since they are all considerably bigger than me. I don’t, in the dream, wonder why they are dressed as women. In exceptionally good voice this morning at church.
November 26, 2022
Fluttering of bluebirds around the pool. They looked exceptionally bright, as if each had his own spotlight.
November 25, 2022
Contemplating what might have happened in my brain in the two years I went without painting. One way of putting it is that I switched from wondering what I ought to be creating to knowing what I must create. There will likely be no more experimentation with media or styles now, which was the center of my effort before. Paint what you wish to see on the canvas. There is no other consideration. I try to make comparisons between the art of writing and the art of painting, but I’m not sure there is one. Revision has some similarities, the art of looking and seeing “No, that is not quite what you meant.” Winter sky, though not cold. Yellow-bellied sapsuckers and flickers in the garden. A great laundering of bedclothes.
November 24, 2022
Thanksgiving morning: pale and wintery, though not very cold. Turned the Macy’s Parade on just as Mariah Carey, looking like overstuffed scarlet sausage, was singing her exhausting Christmas song. Songs of the Pilgrims of Compostello on Pandora. Put heaping mounds of seed out for the Thanksgiving of the birds. For what am I thankful? When I asked that question, the first thing my mind spat out, “I am grateful that for three years I have not been miserable, when I mostly was the forty years before.”
November 23, 2022
Gregorian chant.
Planted what MUST now be the very last addition to the garden: a rose promising to be the most exquisite shell pink. In digging the hole, I hit the bamboo runner that had invaded that plot, and managed to pull out about ten feel of gnarly, ugly yellow root. Interestingly, but not really unexpectedly, the motion of planting took the soreness from my arm, so now it’s back to full use.
November 22, 2022
Long, long vestry meeting, without any (or much) of the rancor one expected. Repaired afterwards o the Village Pub, which I liked.
AVLGMC rehearsal in a big real estate building in the Longhorn Steaks parking lot. Still much of this town I’ve never seen, didn’t suspect existed. The contra D’s in “Salvation Is Created” were easy tonight.
This week’s affliction is inflammation in the right elbow that shoots out excruciating pain if the elbow turns a certain way or tries to bear weight. Pulling bedclothes over me and engaging and disengaging the seatbelt are, for the moment, almost impossible tasks.
Slept last night without taking any cold pills.
November 21, 2022
A former student observes on FaceBook how I’m a mountain of talent and achievement with an underlining strata of grudge. It’s not that I deny that, but am disconcerted that it’s obvious. Maybe it’s not obvious and he’s shooting into the dark. Painting and writing today, so may all days be.
November 18, 2022
Second day of stainless, unmodulated blue light.
The drama with the dehumidifier was entirely my invention. It had run so consistently that I forgot that it would turn off automatically when the basement was dry.
Nine hours of Hildegarde von Bingen available on You Tube. Every now and then an commercial featuring Taylor Swift hawking her record interrupts the music. A very weird juxtaposition.
Ned Rorem is dead. His Paris and New York Diaries were important cogs in the machine of my brain.
November 17, 2022
Planted the peonies in the coldest weather in which I ever want to be working outside.
The dehumidifier went out, which I knew because its terrible whining and rumbling was gone. After several attempts, a charming young man was sent. He stomped down into the basement and stomped up again saying “the power was off.” I felt so stupid I didn’t even check to see if it was actually on again (believe it or not, I had checked the power several times). Hours later, I realized it wasn’t, or had switched off again. Chapter 2 today, I hope. This has been the Year of Incompetent Professionals. The second guy I got at Clegg’s remembered me from the raccoon incident, and treated me like royalty.
Pulled out of the Symphony concert because of the cold, or whatever it is. Its one remnant is that I sound like a frog croaking in a mineshaft. My disappointment is not boundless.
Cancelled my membership to Ancestory.com, feeling that enthusiasm is one for which there is, at present, no time.
Working through a play which is going well, but for which I cannot imagine a very large audience. Story of my life.
Painting has been almost magical.
November 16, 2022
The lighting in my attic is going to affect my painting. Only on the streets of Galway have I ever done al fresco.
Two cartons of peony tubers which I had forgotten arrived. They sit on the rocking chair awaiting their introduction to the good earth. I hope I can gather the fortitude today, as I believe waiting for better weather will be futile.
November 13, 2022
Fine salting of snow. I had to jerk hard on the lid of the recycling bin to get it unfrozen.
Flue aches gone, though the snot Niagara continues.
Sad dream that I was about to graduate from Hiram the second time, having spent eight years there, and being in terror of having nothing to do afterward. This is a frequent dream, which puzzles me, as no such thing haunted me in real life.
Senate saved; Republican majority in the House not large enough to do much damage. All in all, a win.
November 12, 2022
Flu. Sleepless night because of monumental mucous flow. Body aches. It seems to be over, though, lasting somewhat less that a day– just long enough for me to spend money on remedies I apparently no longer need.
Reviews of new books on Rilke in the NYRB. I didn’t know he was such a jerk. Most poets speak of him reverently. The books and the review talk much of Rilke’s beliefs as deduced from his poetry. I am not sure a poet’s beliefs are reliably deducible from his poetry, for poetry is, at least in part, an ecstatic state that transcends rather than illustrates conviction. The convictions of most of my poems are a surprise to me.
November 9, 2022
Bright autumn. The moon last night was indescribably bright and beautiful.
Yesterday planted Madonna lilies and black lilies and black parrot tulips, emptying the last carton of fall bulbs. I think there’s still a rose coming through the mail, but when that is set, the fall planting is over for this year.
Have not turned on the radio, not sure I want to know the outcome of yesterday’s election. Have not heard the angelic host cry out, so perhaps there was not, after all, a Republican sweep. Cannot imagine how a person either moral or intelligent can cast a vote Republican, but that is a subject which, in general, cannot be broached. Something seems to balance and overcome dishonesty, treason, vote-tampering, insurrection, stupidity, malice, mendacity, the steely and ignorant will to end democracy in America, but I can’t figure out what.
Boccherini on You Tube. The red wave didn’t happen. Given the darkness of the expectations, this can be regarded as a victory. Idiots nevertheless entering or clinging to statehouses and assemblies.
November 8, 2022
My bladder got me up at the exact right moment to witness the dried-blood eclipse of the moon. He hung over Carolyn’s roof, not only deep red, but seemingly motionless for a long time. When the light began to come back it came deep gold. I wondered if the bears and the night creatures were watching too, and if so, what did they think?
A week or so into my study-studio, I deem it a complete success. I can move from writing to painting without moving at all. I can stare at the painting and the screen almost simultaneously. All those years sunk in superfluity! Best not think of it.
November 7, 2022
Poulenc’s Gloria assigned to eternity last night. I hope it went well. It sounded well. I know I personally never sang it better. Afterwards, I thought of my mother once I had sat down in my car in Biltmore. I had to wait until I had control of myself again.
This has been a wonderful day. An outsider might deduce I equate “happy” with “productive,” and if I do, it is well. Rose and wrote a poem about my experience in the car in Biltmore. Finished–or at least for the moment achieved–a scene from my symphony play. Went outside and saw that the bears had been at work, knocking the flower pots from the porch like rowdy boys. Planted peonies alleged to be an outrageous pink. Planted jonquil, and tulips that are meant to look like white parrots. The best thing was that I finally addressed the pond, whose stream slowed down months ago and stopped maybe a week past. The water was black and odorous. One fish was at the top, evidently gulping air. I don’t know what I though was wrong with it before– I always think mechanical things are beyond my control, but they are only about 60% of the time. I felt so bad for the little fish that I determined to make it right. The easiest fix turned out to be the right one. I knew the motor wasn’t dead, for it buzzed away under the water. I switched off the current and dug around in the well around the motor– three feet of cold, black, excessively organic water– pulling out great handfulls of muck. The operation was far more loathsome in conception than in application, as things are. Plugged it back in, and water came gushing out of the pipe, scouring away debris like you see on videos of flash floods on the Internet. The whole wide, tiny river came back. I don’t know how long it will take the corruption to clear, but at least one fish knows it’s on its way.
Thought about the difference between typical community theater actors and really good ones while watching the one-acts the other night. The community theater actor tries hard to exhibit the emotion a character SHOULD be feeling at that moment. A good actor forgets that and allows himself to feel what he feels creating the line. Sometime what is suggested by the line and what is on the actor’s face create a delicious richness of disharmony.
November 5, 2022
Thinking of something else, I suddenly beheld the answer to SS’s implied question of what I want in a theater. Its physical plan would be like that of the National in London. The Main Stage would have a five production season, three of which would be new plays or premieres, two of which would be great honking classics such as Schiller or Marlowe or Chikamatsu or Moliere or, moving forward, O’Neill and Stoppard. We would procure a gigantic grant and every other year would produce a new opera. Two or three little theaters or black boxes would expand the offerings into what delights the community at that time. And Pluto himself would fund it from his vast stores underground.
Watched the rededication of Geffen Hall on TV last night. Liked the commissioned piece– lovely details but lacking in structure. The Beethoven 9th was fully itself and needs no commentary. The bass soloist was magnificent, and wore a sort of black dashiki with gold medallions. The conductor was very strange, with a concealed personality and the tendency to draw quite precise geometric shapes in the air with his hands.
November 4, 2022
Wrote a poem in fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes before dawn.
Saw the turkey flock in the west yard and went out to look at them. They swarmed up on the porch around me, poking their beaks forlornly at the empty seed bowl, brushing my legs with their feathers, registering their disappointment that I’d put nothing out for them. My first morning chore was buying seed at Southern States. The giant man there hoisted my sacks into the back of the car, saying, “You’d better use me while you have me.” He was monumental.
Considerable deposits of bear shit by the pond. They must come exclusively by night now.
Cyclamen blooms under the bamboo and dried goldenrod.
The white rose I photographed and wrote of and made a poem upon still blooms the same bloom in the front garden.
November 3, 2022
Deep tapestry of dreams last night. In one my apparent avatar was the actor William Hurt, big and blond and slow-talking. Didn’t know he was in my imaginative universe. I was on a long journey with a woman whose identity is lost. We kept discovering new and wonderful things. When the wonderful thing we discovered was an especially noble bathroom, I realized I needed to get up. Later, back to sleep, I locked my cat Titus in a basement and left him there for a long time. It was some kind of experiment. When I opened the door, he was waiting for me, but had turned into a human being, though he still had a cat body.
November 2, 2022
All Souls.
Received my third COVID booster at Ingle’s, leaning on my shopping cart.
One of the baritones from ASC, RJ, passed away in his sleep. He was 12 years younger than I.
Did a ZOOM class with B’s Smoky Mountain students. Read some of my poems, which are typically better when read than I remember them. It was exciting and they asked good questions.
November 1, 2022
All Saints.
Watched The Bride of Frankenstein on Hallowe’en night. I hadn’t remembered from my childhood that it is funny.
Painted my white rose, that it might linger. It has lingered outside the front door, in the flesh, most miraculously.
Gardening in the autumn cool. Pulled up the dead giants from the front garden, replenished the dirt that rode out on their roots.
Knee issues seem to be cured–rather spectacularly–by prednisone. There’s ever an underlying ouchyness, but the great scalding flame is gone.
Realized a certain Trumpishness in myself. When I lose a writing contest or a publication I assume, at some point, that the process was rigged.
October 31, 2022
Hallowe’en
Knee aflame. I wonder if it’s gout moving upstream?
Bluebirds inhabited my garden for the last few days. I wait till now to give thanks.
Bill Henderson has died in Ohio. His article said he left scores of descendants.
My first trick-or-treat night I was dressed as Robin Hood and I went with older neighborhood kids. The kids– who long ago have left memory– were attentive and kind to me. It was raining. I thought of that as a kind of betrayal.
One time we ventured up the hill into the older houses in Goodyear Heights, where the people were more established and gave better treats. We were scolded for this afterward in a spasm of self-segregation.
One year the feature was a haunted house down at the end of Goodview. I still remember it with wonder, and hope that the people in the house, wherever they are now, are gratified.
In fifth grade I had planned out what I felt would be my last trick-or-treat adventure. I was very attentive to the stages of growing up, which I assumed were holy and eternal, wherefore I was disappointed when others didn’t allow them to be sacraments. As I was doning my costume, my father came to my room and said. “You’re not going out tonight. You’re going to stay here and work in the garden.” I asked why, expecting that the answer would be “because I said so.” In that I was not disappointed. So there I was in complete dark, pulling out spent corn stalks and whatnot, wondering what signal I had missed. There was never an explanation. I was not told I had transgressed in some way. . . nothing. If there was meant to be a lesson attached to it, it was lost in “because I said so.” It lingers as a cruelty. Father’s arbitrariness was, if looked at in a certain way, and intriguing mystery. But not to a child trying to understand how to behave.
I remember the night I went to Scandals topless, dressed as a Genie. I was very, very popular.
I remember running in the Hiram graveyard with George and Denny and others on a Hallowe’en with a full moon.
I’ve lived in this house for 8 years and no one has come trick-or-treating. My side of Lakeshore is hellacious for pedestrians, as there are no sidewalks.
My maples are beautiful even now that the peak has passed.
