Vole

 

September 26, 2023

Late yesterday afternoon I decided to make myself a tomato sandwich. I unwrapped the bread, went to do something in another room, and when I returned the same mouse, the one whose sad demise I had lamented, was nibbling on it. His eyes were defiant. Again he allowed me to pick him up without a struggle. This time he went into the trash bin, which was picked up in the dark of this morning. If he returns I’ll know he is supernatural.

A Google search reveals that my roommate was, in fact, a vole. It also says that voles rarely enter buildings. Its strange tameness was not explained. 

Encountered L in the Ingle’s parking lot. Each time I ask about UNCA from a former colleague, the mouth of lamentation opens. She’s the latest. Apparently it’s even worse for the English department, split– as it never was in my 37 years– between warring factions. S, whose arrival I celebrated with a dinner party at my house-- when I made an elaborate mushroom stew because she is a vegetarian– made everyone either her enemy or her ally in her struggle for tenure, and uses liberally the power of filing Title 9 complaints whenever a criticism of her can possibly (however improbably) be attributed to misogyny. Here’s misogyny for you: in my experience, the divisive, embittered and embittering destroyer of academic concord is invariably a woman. Her own will is more important to her than the mission of the institution. Her colleagues will, philosophically and politically, encourage this attitude, as if it evens out some ancient wrong. Nor is there any defense, because fact and reason are not allowable tools. There is only emotion–”but I FEEL it is thus-and-so-” and not everybody’s emotion, but only those who can present themselves as somehow vulnerable. Anything but full surrender to feelings– however ill-defined, however remote from truth–is presented as violence, and that presentation automatically accepted by an administration who wants nothing, really, except not to be questioned. Our former two-year Provost lasted long enough to eviscerate the department, which was once the strongest on campus. No more tenure hires for us. Those hired must be a minority, no matter competition or qualification. The salve for our sacrifice to diversity was to be they would not be on tenure track until they prove themselves, but that leaves open the possibility of several years of inadequate or incompetent staffing. According to L, that’s exactly what happened. The woman who replaced me and R is not only a bad poet, but misses classes and faculty meetings. She feels secure as the genetic identity that got her the job will be a powerful argument if she is ever threatened with losing it. The provost, of course, achieved this and ran off. Plus, he gave her $60,000 to start her very own reading series, independent from the designs of the department, which itself was never offered a penny. Dean Karen stupefied everyone with her kaleidoscope of inanities, and ran off to run a museum. All recent administrators have vandalized and run. All. The ruin of a once- promising school became irreversible when education disappeared as a priority. Money, tenure, influence, alliance, bailiwick, counter-punching, virtue-signaling, cancellation remain and thrive, but no one gives a goddam what the students learn, or fail to learn. No one with influence. Why does anyone still apply and attend? This began, as I and a few others knew, when the word “assessment” entered, then dominated, the conversation. What were we assessing? Our adherence to anti-pedagogical guidelines set down by the administration. It was a test of obedience, and, alas, we passed with flying colors. L said “Our legacy is disappearing.” I figured mine was gone even as I left without comment from the administration (or my department, it needs to be said), without the gifts one usually gets upon retirement, without an invitation back to campus for anything at any time. Not even to give them money. If I could think of anything to do about this I might grit my teeth and re-enter the fray. But I am old, feeble, and without a single weapon in my hand. And should I appear winged and haloed upon a shaft of light, THAT would offend someone, and it would be for nought. 

Killed a brown recluse in my bathroom.

Mouse

 September 25, 2023

Music from the time of Louis XIII, so the caption says.

Arose feeling cool and rested. Had the conviction that this was going to be a good day. 

One benefit of being sick alone is that you can moan every step to the bathroom and nobody is disturbed. 

Watched the movie Brigadoon last night, S and J’s visit having put me in nostalgia for high school, where I played Mr Lundie in the stage version. I’d forgotten what a truly terrible film it is, an apparatus upon which to hang the elements that made Oklahoma and Carousel successes, by then threadbare and calculated. I heard myself praying at every moment of heightened emotion, “PLEASE do not dance again!” But they did. Van Johnson is the only one who emerges with dignity. I tried to remember my emotions relative to it during high school. I guess then it was mostly about impressing my friends and not screwing up my song (as the candy vendor at the fair) and nothing to do with dramaturgy. I remember Brenda Brooks who handed me my Mr Lundie cloak which she had made during Home Ec class. It was the first and only time we ever spoke– ran in completely different circles-- but her eyes shone with pride. 

Music changes to La Follia, my favorite. 

Afternoon: Heavy duty gardening. Anemone, bluebells, crocus into the ground. All cartons of bulbs yet received are accounted for. 

I walked out of the garden into the kitchen and saw something on the floor. I startled before I understood what it was. It was brown mouse with shiny eyes. He nibbled around, trying to find a crumb, not realizing he is the reason I make sure there’s no unenclosed food in the house. He didn’t seem agitated or frightened, and I picked him up without his scurrying or scampering. I put him in the trash bin. A minute later I repented, pulled him out of the trash bin and set him on the lawn. Again, no scurrying or flight. I decided he must be sick. As I watched, greenbottles began to attack him. It looked like there was a sore on his bottom, or his rectum was afflicted in some way. At first he fled from the flies, hiding under Virginia creeper, but the flies pursued him and he gave up. When I turned away, flies had attached themselves to the sore and he didn’t try to shake them away. Do I end misery or let nature take its course? I walked away. After a while I realized that was not the choice I would have wanted had some great power found me afflicted and tormented. I went back, but could no longer find him.

The red of the infection makes a clear border where it left off climbing my leg.

 

September 24, 2023

Joyful dinner party with Jeff and Sharon last night. I made pork roast with root vegetables, ratatouille, and a maple cream pie. The pie looked to be a failure ot every stage of its development, but turned to be delicious. We talked, of course, about old times, and the people we knew then, and what has become of them, agreeing that, all in all, the three of us have held up pretty well. We asked ourselves who were the “cool kids” back at Ellet. It might have been us, but I think the part of the blessedness of that company was that we did not have a social elite, nor that gang that goes around tormenting the weak or odd. At least I don’t remember them. Toward the end of the evening my weariness transmuted into waves of pain, part ungodly exhaustion, part universal inflammation like a bruise and a burn at once. I bade my friends goodbye as I realized it was phlebitis, my old nemesis, and I began gobbling the drugs. That was about 10 PM. From then until 3 this afternoon I was in considerable pain. I never understood exactly what causes the pain of an attack; the bacterium surely can’t be striking every nerve at once. I’d gotten to the drug soon enough that it was a brief attack, and didn’t exhibit all the usual stages, but it was so painful I cannot call it “light.” I rose up a dozen times to urinate vast quantities, more than I could ever have taken in. Where was I retaining all that liquid? In the afternoon it eased up so that I could actually sleep. Now, evening, I’ve made it up the stairs, but I know the affliction remains because I can’t type two words without making a mistake. Beautiful, perfect autumn day while I was writhing under the blankets. 

 

September 22, 2023

Outstanding AVLGMC concert at Givens Estates last night. Happy audience, happy performers. Took me one song (The National Anthem, in this case) to blow past hoarseness and make a contribution.  The invariable weak point of our concerts is the inevitable duet by “the singing doctors.” Both voices have passed their prime. 

Theater with J, a matinee of What the Constitution Means to Me. Not a wasted afternoon– excellent acting and production values. But the show is essentially virtue-signaling and not a play. There is no ambiguity (hence no character) and no chance for growth, as the correct attitude is struck and the correct information is revealed by a charismatic and infallible narrator. Perky, though, and often funny. I bet it was a one-act that outgrew itself trying to be a full length. The really good material took up somewhat less than an hour. As a playwright, I’m jealous of its fame. In want to say “inexplicable” fame, but we all want to hear what we already believe emoted from the stage. Spent unnecessary money being confused by the parking apparatus. Had an excellent bloody Mary at the Bier Garden. Did not bake the pie I had assigned myself to bake.

Goodbye summer, goodbye. 

 September 21, 2023

Bad night last night, brought on by after-rehearsal resturant chili, which was not good enough going down to justify the after-effects.

Blue anemones

September 20, 2023

Dug out the eastern porch garden in preparation for, I think, blue anemones. 

Zoom meeting concerning the Stewardship Committee. S is a force sweeping all before her. Someone must have said she was made for us and we were made for her. We were concerned during discernment for the new Dean that we might be too clergy dependent. That concern has now become an affirmation of identity. So far it is well. Direction and unanimity. 

 

September 19, 2023

Closed three windows against the chill. Got the comforter down from the shelf. 

Planted red anemone yesterday. Think I did so before and it came to nothing. Maybe a better spot this time. Maybe a better root. 

Persimmons laden with fruit, but I let the trees grow too tall and now I can’t reach them. 

Vestry meeting passed like a blur. One had the feeling all things were decided already.

 September 16, 2023

My prescription having been exhausted, and no response coming from the doctors, I’m consumed with inflammation again. A few months of relief. 

Some gardening today, some spreading of mulch and weeding of weeds, but the same spirit wasn’t in it. 

K and S are doing a podcast, in which I’m told they mention me and Ben & Angela. Waiting for that mention to occur.

Trump. Trump. Trump. At any other time, in any other place, Trump would have faced a firing squad on January 7. I have always been impatient with process. 

 

September 15, 2023

Went to rehearsal last night fully intending to withdraw, but then had fun. New members. The most exhausting old ones absent for the night. Departure postponed for a while. 

Retired, I have almost no time for anything. Put off going to the grocery store for days. Haven’t gone to MAHEC to fight for my prescription. Words and images crowing to get out. Iris beds needing to be dug.

Evening now of a productive day. Dug out from their mantels of weeds the iris beds, planted the three cartons of bulbs that had arrived before the beach and sat waiting. It was the cool of morning and I barely broke a sweat, though my body feels it now. Ate pasta with my sauce and drank not-bad red wine from South Carolina. At evening I sat on the back porch listening to Chopin with my turkey flock gleaning in the garden– now nine, when there has been as many as fourteen. When they came close in a certain angle of light, red and pink and green iridescence flashed off their feathers. Chopin is not the ideal composer for turkeys. I’m thinking Bach. 

Rewrites

 

September 13, 2023

Turkeys arrive to greet me at sunset. 

Uncharacteristic tantrum occasioned by questions from the cast about Ben & Angela. I think I calmed and toned down before I sent a response. An uncertainty of chronology or the tone of a particular word bothers them. Usually I like discussions like this, but today was, for some reason, not the right day for it. “Just say the lines,” did not, in the end, comprise my response. I reflect that in all the plays I’ve acted in–an inordinate number new and untried– I’ve never asked for or suggested a rewrite. To my recollection I’ve never asked a substantive question, unless I flatly didn’t know what I was saying. Just say the lines, and all will be clear at length: the wisdom you didn’t see at first, the folly you suspected, either their ineptitude or yours. 

Improvised an intricate sauce which I’m now having over linguine. Triumph. I wish I remembered what is in it. Tomatoes. . . garlic. . . . .

The cast questions remind my of an anecdote from Tolkien. Asked repeatedly why he just didn’t have the eagles fly the One Ring to Mount Doom, he eventually said, “I have an answer for the people who keep asking that question.”

“What is it?”

“Shut up.” 

Nevertheless, rewrote the play with regard to their observations. 

The Commonwealth of Dogs

 September 12, 2023

K from Ellet has died. His shy beauty in memory. 

A day of almost ludicrous productiveness. Went early to the riverside where I watched happy dogs cavort in and by the water. It started with two big red dogs– shaped like Labs; maybe they were Labs– joined by a white dog and a black dog, both leggy and pointy and wolfish, and finally by a roly-poly little white mutt, all of whom raced around in a dog commonwealth, stupid with joy. I wrote on three different projects as I sat watching. Returned, painted a small painting, again achievable because there was no overlay requiring a wait for drying. Symphony Chorus in the evening, where we began the Hayden St Nicholas Mass. K says I sang it before, but I had no memory of it, so it was a merry rediscovery. Among the rarest of events happened during rehearsal, which was my being captivated by the beauty of a woman. Her name is C, and she was new tonight, all poise and grace and unconscious radiance ten feet from me. During introductions it was revealed she is an OBGYN. 

The William Byrd Station came on by itself during the night, so there was heavenly, mysterious beauty. 

 

September 11, 2023

Watching on TV the bell rung for the dead at the Pentagon and then at Shanksville. Surprisingly engaged with each syllable of each name. 

Painted two paintings in one day–aided by the fact that the layouts didn’t require drying time. Both of the Folly River. Linda says “The Ocean is your Muse.”

 

September 10, 2023

Left the beach in intermittent and then, at last, torrential rain. Not a drop fell on us at Folly. Last night was odd. I didn’t know how I felt about being home. I didn’t know how I felt about this week at the shore. Slept on it, and now it seems not to matter. I was glad to be back in my own space. The last few days at the beach my system boiled with histamines. I seemed to myself to be scratching endlessly. Did others notice? Being car-less prevented me from addressing this until we were on the road again, and I found Claritin at a roadside market.  

Tony mowed the lawn in the last moments before the downpour. I try to avoid talking with him–only because he’s SO talkative I run out of responses– but I owed him too much money to hide this time. 

I sit at my desk having no idea what I should do. Dreamed of painting vast, beautiful canvases that I could talk about with critics later, so maybe I’ll paint. No vast canvases, though, so long as I’m painting in the attic. 

Could I live at the beach? It’s probably better as a vacation site. I was born beside the woods and feel at home there. The sea will always be a bit of an adventure.

When I went to get carts for the move out of the condo, I discovered that tiny sparrows had been roosting in them, safe through the night.

A bear I think was Ruth Bader Ginsbear was killed by a car on Beaverdam. Losing a friend. 

 

September 8, 2023

Achy with exhaustion. Roamed the village before the others were up, settling in here and there to write, not all that successfully. Bloody Marys at my favorite red neck dives. Finding places out of the coruscating sun. In the afternoon we visited a park on James Island. Have I enjoyed being by the sea? Yes and double yes, but there seems something forced about it, as though my enjoyment were allowable only by quick and furtive glances to the side. 

Watching boys on the beach through my monocular.

The morning of leaving Folly lies but a few hours off.

Gulls and pelicans glide close over the balcony, as though barely able to clear the building. 

Folly River

 September 7, 2023

Our weather has been perfect, if a little tropical. Another pure clear morning with a ball of incipient fire hovering in the east. In half an hour the balcony will be uninhabitable.

Made my little inroads into the village, spying out odd corners and, in many cases, deliciously picturesque beach houses, each one to be coveted for a different reason. Sat on the dead street with iced coffee. Even the grackles were exhausted. There’s no emptiness like the emptiness of a resort after Labor Day. Drinks and salad on the pier, all that. Last night Captain Will took us on a boat tour–”Flipper Finders”-- of the Folly River and various formerly pirate-haunted inlets. I wanted to see dolphins, and dolphins we saw, as well as wood storks, oystercatchers, egrets, terns, pelicans, one great hunched and gloomy great blue heron. I can’t account for the melancholy I felt the whole time. We disembarked on a sandbank surrounding the lighthouse, where I found a sand dollar I was going to give to a little boy on the boat with us, except he came back with a brimming handful of the same. It was sunset, and the marshes were voluptuously beautiful, the sky pink and orange and purple around the reddest sun that ever was. Birds flew over, finding their rest for the night. In my dreams, marshes and swamps represent blessedness and peace. I don’t know why, as I didn’t grow up around any such landscape. I thought of that watching the real marshes darken around me. Am I drawn to a place like this to find peace? Should I start checking with realtors? Captain Will is a man who found a job that will cause him the least conceivable turbulence. A blessed man. The kid climbed around too much, but other than that, what could disturb him? He bids every day goodbye looking at dolphins and the light go technicolor over the holy wetlands.

Watching the US Open tennis matches. There are moments when tennis is exciting, and the players are fine physical specimens, but I never watch it on my own.

Vacation is Scrolling Your Phone Somewhere Else.

Hummingbirds at the balcony.

Evening: Went to the sea and played. Soothing, massaging. Shared it with surprisingly few. Turning red, but gradually, so it’s reasonably becoming. Drifted in cool water, thinking my thoughts, praying the same prayers that do not avail me on dry land. One pelican flies over us repeatedly. I know from the one feather missing from his right wing.

 

September 5, 2023

Up, waiting for the breakfast I’d never have on my own. First night without troubled dreams.

Folly 2

 

September 4, 2023

My room is haunted and gives me off dreams, not horrors but sickening prolongations, endless wrangling with stupid people, disturbing discoveries behind closed doors. Maybe it’s the air-conditioning.

Up early to write and to look at the ocean, both tasks accomplished. 

Wandered the little town to my old haunt, Planet Follywood, where I had an excellent bloody Mary, a ghastly omelet, and watched the locals. Do they watch back?

What we do as a group is dictated by custom to a degree I had not appreciated. Variation, even suggested, causes anxiety. 

Ate. 

Sat on the balcony watching the stars emerge. The first one we saw we decided was Saturn, whose rings we could see had we better lenses. 

Folly Beach

 September 3, 2023

Sharp, distinct smell of marijuana from the condo next door.

Folly Beach, my least favorite and most frequented resort. Fourth floor, near the western end of the building. The sun rose this morning in the exact spot where the copper moon rose last night. The difference is that the sun is blazing, unendurable , spearing off the gray waters, whereas the moon was a necromancer in mysterious red, making his own pale path across the waters. Bill and DJ thought the saw UFOs. We watched satellites pass, noting the abundance of them. I recalled standing on the Evans’ front lawn in Tallmadge, watching Sputnik hurry over in the late twilight, knowing what it was because it was the only one.

Surfing, wading, walking of dogs, sweeping of metal detectors across the sand.

Dolphins sighted at breakfast (ours).

Went to the beach and played in the surf among the weekend throngs. Threw escaping balls back to the hands of boys. Everybody was happy. Maybe invite our warring factions to the beach and give them water wings and let them play until it’s all worked out. Fathers and mothers teaching their young to swim, holding them so they fear nothing of the ocean. I walked to the end of the pier and back. Nobody was catching anything. The grackles gossiped. During our night vigil on the balcony we saw a tremendous meteor, blazing white at the head, its tail an improbable emerald green. It was so vivid and glorious I thought it was a firework, but it was not. Seconds later a duller one burst in the same part of the sky. We watched for a long time, hoping for a third.

Ironically, the task now, in South Carolina in September, is to keep from freezing during the night in the air-conditioned condo. I dreamed last night of trying to keep winged cats from overwhelming my house.  

 

September 1, 2023

Happy Birthday to me. I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. 

Table work for Ben and Angela here last night. I’ve noted before what a strange experience it is, as-- though I remember the mechanics of writing it the play-- there’s almost no deep recognition of the lines. They strike as though I’d never heard them before, as though they’re somebody else’s thoughts. I suppose that’s good. Discovery, careful listening to fathom what I might have meant. Did a quick re-write to shorten and cut a bit of gray here and there. 

Radio reports that 22 years after 9-11, not one prisoner has yet been brought to trial. I thought at the time this one exception from the Rule of Law would damn us, and clearly it has. The evil circus surrounded Trump and his minions could not have assembled had the confines not already been loosened. 

I looked up a recipe online for a certain kind of cookie (which I ended up not making) and my pages are full of articles and adds for exactly the same confections. It’s a kind of hell to have your desires–however passing and minimal– multiplied and echoed.

Met DJ and J for birthday drinks at the Village Porch. Thought I had phlebitis, but it seems to have been exhaustion and going too long without an aspirin. 

One year blends into another. 

 

August 30, 2023

Turns out I have a Internet domain, which I have been paying for without recollection. Will find out how to use it. Publishers ask for it, and now I’ll be able to answer.

Last night after symphony chorus I was one of those men who infuriate women. We have to hoist enormous tables and reset them to restore the room, and I was “helping” a women (the tables are very heavy) who didn’t need my help and whom, apparently, I was significantly hindering. I just assumed. . . . One is damned for not helping when needed, damned for helping when not needed. Unless the information be volunteered up front, how to know the difference? 

Every passage Brahms writes in the Liebeslieder is honey and silver. 

Weeded in the rain, an experience which, after one accustoms to it, is pleasant. The tribe of pokeweed should despair of its next generation. I pulled out near-shrub sized weeds from a plot that was cultivated to the bar earth in spring– perhaps a portent of the Jurassic rankness we are told to expect.