October 20, 2023

Rainy morning, expecting my sister any hour from the dim and rustling south. I think of that line from “Frost at Midnight.” 

DJ texts that the BeBe was “almost a full house” last night. 

Instead, I attended chorus rehearsal, where it was discovered that our Christmas concert will be exactly those– and apparently all of those– jazz-lite rockin’-round-the-Christmas-tree pop songs that I hate utterly. Unrelenting. And not one hasn’t been on our program before. The only thing even vaguely unique is Friddle’s micro setting of “In the Bleak Midwinter.” When I bitch about doing the same things over and over, somebody (usually WJ) says, “Some people haven’t heard it.” There are plenty of things some people haven’t heard and we haven’t sung. Why not delve into them? 

Turns out we’re meant to have a four hour “retreat” tomorrow to learn this crap. I don’t even have the energy to protest. I am enjoying the process and the company, though, even if the repertoire is useless.. 

Lunch at J’s beautiful house in Haw Creek. Curried chicken salad and an apple cake still in memory making my taste buds tingle. We talked about her idea for a play, a one-woman show, which I thought hugely promising. Her dog would not leave my side. The dog looked anxious, as though he were leaving something out and couldn’t remember what. 

Turbulent days as far as my mental state. Fighting despair on several fronts. Or maybe just frustration. 

Sweet pea vine, bearing flowers of the most perfect pink, endures outside my bedroom window.