April 29, 2023

Another day of heroic gardening. Dug, hoed, cleared, planted nasturtium and the ferns I’d bought at Reems Creek. Transplanted a fern that managed somehow to be growing in the lawn and getting mowed over each time. When I stepped into the shower, the water ran dirt brown under me. Can’t remember that since I was a kind. 

Sat for a while on the pond bench, longer than I planned, for the movement of fish in the water is notoriously mesmerizing. I have at least three burly bullfrogs. This makes me happy. As I watched, fish appeared from under the waterlilies, fisht bigger than they ought to be, especially one pale silver and variously speckled, with a diaphanous tail trailing behind. It was at least a foot long. I assumed my original purchase had been long ago cleaned out by herons, but maybe I was wrong. 

I went early to the river and began a new story. I saw a merganser, all cinnamon-headed, plying the gray water. Their body language is much more agitated than the mallards’. 

Solid and deep revisions of three plays. A chapter of Bears and an act of a new play sitting in the notebook, waiting to be transcribed. 

A bowl of baba ganoush brought Syracuse memories flooding back.