January 28, 2024
Annual meeting, where I surrendered, without regret, my vestry duties. Much talk about the financial troubles the Parish faces, the shrinkage of population and offerings from times past. Though, as I’m part of the Parish, it is my problem, I kept rejoicing that it wasn’t my particular problem any more. A day of the absence of dedication, inspired to do nothing much. Listen to music. Wander the Internet. Wind pulls on the attic doors.
Lord, give me what You have made me want
January 27, 2024
Drove through the downpour to sing at S’s funeral. I’m grateful that she’s easy to remember before the dementia that tarnished and then ended her life. She was one of my first friends at All Souls: Susan, Nancy Reid, Jane Bingham, Bonnie, all gone. S was always so much herself, healthy and stringent in mind and body, earning a long and rewarding old age, which was stolen from her. May the demons of that horrible disease sink into the earth and be known no more.
Listening on repeat to “O Bethany Rejoice– Byzantine Chant for St. Lazarus.”
Lord, give me what You have made me want
January 26, 2024
Orthodox chant from Face Book.
Rehearsal rather joyful last night, S was gone, resting from the ordeal of family court, and R presided; therefore was frenzy absent. Ri, with his shirt buttoned wrong so his belly sagged through at the bottom, organized and beseeched.
Repainting, refining old works, chiseling away at two novels, trying to eat only so much as will keep body and soul together, hoping to purge inflammation.
Lord, give me what You have made me want
January 24, 2024
Created a very strange painting on the Chorus with Closed Mouth from Madame Butterfly. When I went to bed last night I’d resolved to discard it, but when I saw it on the easel this morning I thought, “That’s beautiful.”
L came and drilled bolts into the living room ceiling so it wouldn’t loosen more before a permanent solution is found.
Greater, surer progress on The Garden of the Bears than at any previous time.
Lord, give me what You have made me want
January 22, 2024
Curious Psalm yesterday: God has spoken once; I have heard it twice.
Replaced the broken mailbox myself, it proving so ludicrously simple even I could do it. The wood block into which the screws are screwed is rotten and needs to be replaced, but I decided to ration my handyman triumphs to one a day.
Akron friends posting old photos of the sled hill at GHMP. Unexpected nostalgia. We were never cold.
Lord, give me what You have made me want
January 21, 2024
Afflicted with a stiff back for the last week. The first couple of hours of the day, until I limbered up, were problematic. Bathroom duties had to be timed to take advantage of increasing mobility. I lay in bed this morning and realized that I was tensing my back muscles, not intentionally, maybe, but surely. I relaxed– forcing relaxation, if one can be said to do that– one level, then to the next level. I went down three levels of tightness until I felt the warmth of freely circulating blood. Have I been bracing against the cold? Some anxiety to which I am not full conscious? In any case, I have never minded so much afflictions to which I knew the remedy.
It was 8 degrees at the party last night. It is 8 degrees now, however brilliant the rising sun. Bored with that.
Shocking cold in the attic.
La Follia surprising me on You Tube.
Lord, give me what You have made me want
January 20, 2024
Snow endures and increases, like the winters of my childhood which were white from Thanksgiving to Easter.
Attended a Zoom poetry reading originating in Cambridge, MA, I think. Earnest people reading their earnest poems. They all had (perhaps we all have) the same cadence, the same tone of muffled urgency, trying to impress upon the audience the significance of the work without seeming to try too hard. The first and most extreme example (for me) was Louise Gluck, rest her soul, whose cadence of world-weary blandness was meant to convey the modesty of genius. Some god allowed that what was manifestly dust and ashes be received some how as subtle gold. But all the poets of Syracuse had it in my day, each poem presented with a slurring hush, as though it were a baby and a bad fairy near by, ready to curse it if it were elevated too high. The Slam, whatever its shortcomings, tried to cure us of that. The two best out of Cambridge were women clearly touched by the Slam tradition, which allowed them a little of the sibyl’s tone.
K's birthday celebration at Rye Knot. Freezing & festive.
Lord, give me what You have made me want
January 19, 2024
Awakened in the night by banging. Got up and looked, saw nobody in the darkness. It happened again; I looked again. When I was up and ready to go out, I heard it again. The cover of the outdoor circuit board had blown loose and was banging the side of the house. So much for ghosts and intruders.
Breakfast with L at the Corner Kitchen. Caught up on parts of our several year separation. L wanted to know about my spiritual life. I think he wanted to reconcile what he knows of me with what the world knows of the crooked witness of conservative Christianity. The omelet was outstanding. As I drove home, a wall of snow came out of the north, and continues, though occasionally lessened, to this hour. Most of the time, wind drove the snow lines exactly parallel to the ground. Left the house and traveled several times during the day, just to show that I could. Bought a new mailbox, the Ace Hardware lady having convinced me that even I could install one.
Email from an agent whose opening lines showed in the lead in as “A strong and unique project, and beautifully written.” I knew of a certainty the next, hidden word would be “but.” And so it was. Better than War & Peace and the bible put together, but I’m just not the exact right person to represent it. . . .
I can see the tips of the bamboo through the study window, whipped from side to side by the wind, paled and obscured by the snow.
Lord, give me what You have made me want
January 18, 2024
Hearing S do Compline.
Another storm approaches.
GMC rehearsal fun, if rather sad musically. We’re doing that hideous commissioned piece for GALA. No point even in mentioning it, as it’s as inevitable as rocks rolling down hill.
Came across a video concerning a woman in Sarasota who found a racoon in a dumpster, and instead of helping it out, she set fire to the dumpster and incinerated it. Then she put the video up on social media. The horror of this deed has not left me. Perhaps in the light of Gaza and Kyiv it cannot be mentioned. Nevertheless, I mention it. The mind that would do such a thing is the same mind that poisons rivers and bombs cities. There are no small cruelties.
Lord, give me what You have made me want
January 17, 2024
The study so cold I thought I’d have to give it up today, except for the pool of warmth around the heater, just extensive enough to hit my back as I write.
My last vestry meeting, ZOOMed, because of the arctic weather nobody wanted to come out in. I’ll give my performance as a vestryman a B-, good in a crisis, good at coming up with ideas, but impatient with the extended process so beloved by Episcopalians, and which their dedication to has made efficacious. My experience as an artist has made me intolerant of less direct ways of achieving a goal– have the vision, fulfil it. I spent much of my time holding my tongue, a courtesy certain others did not afford. But, it made me feel part of the Church as I never have before, responsible, a stake-holder. I hope that feeling doesn’t fade away, though it probably will.
The mailman destroyed my mailbox trying to cram too large of a package into it.
Lord, give me what You have made me want
January 16, 2024
Hardly anything in the news but horrible winter storms piling up upon each other. And Israel. And Ukraine. And the Worst Person in American History harvesting his expected win in Iowa.
Really spectacular inclemency, howling wind driving squalls of snow. Met a man in the Fresh Market parking lot who remarked, “Pretty snow!” I suppose it is.
Lord, give me what You have made me want
January 15, 2024
Finally watched A Biltmore Christmas, which, understandably, attracted so much attention locally. What nobody mentioned during the excitement is that it is quite bad. The premise is interesting, and the lead actor maintains his dignity, but it’s badly directed, in general, badly acted, and so arch in its approach it’s difficult to take anything seriously, especially its brief moments of emotional engagement. Did Biltmore underwrite this as a kind of gigantic ad? I never watch those Hallmark Christmas romances, so maybe they’re all like that. Perhaps it’s what people expect. Some things must never be said in public.
Lord, give me what You have made me want
January 14, 2024
Hard, cold day, following a hard, cold day. I think maybe yesterday was full of light, but it’s not to be remembered now in the evening gloom. Vivaldi on You Tube.
Back to painting on paper. Fragile. . . but what isn’t?
Garden of the Bears flowing. . . after the next step revealed itself while I was coming out of a dream. That is very unusual for me.
Lord, give me what You have made me want
January 12, 2024
College Hunks came and hauled away the old sofa. The last of Maud’s hair lay under it.
Bitter wind-driven rain returns, and the rivers not yet settled from the last time. Power has gone out three times, annihilating work.
Traffic was stopped on River Road the other morning by a wreck. Eventually I learned that two cars had collided just south of Woodfin Riverside Park. But the immediate sight was of SEVEN police vehicles strewn about, blocking every possible route around the wreck, blocking the ambulance which had to thread its way among parked-on-the-roadway cars at the pace of a snail. I hope nobody was bleeding or in pain. The last three times I called the police (someone stealing mail from my mailbox; getting hit-and-run sideswiped on Biltmore Ave; a prowler creeping around the vacant house next door)I was told that there wasn’t sufficient personnel to investigate, but if I got the name of the perp they might be able to do something. Do we not see the practical (as opposed to the philosophical) reasoning behind “Defund the Police”? There’s nobody to solve crimes, but plenty to cluster around a point of excitement, getting in the way of people with an actual mission. How many cops in seven cruisers? How many therefore unavailable to take a call? I remember when you’d drive down Merrimon past the lake and there’s be a police cruiser, from various districts, parked on every available bit of grass, both sides of the street, twenty or thirty anyhow, in what I suppose was meant as a terrorizing gesture. Thank God you don’t see that anymore. But you do see a throng in blue where they are not (or no longer) needed, and empty air when something real comes up. Who can forget the videos of Uvalde, where a hundred beefy cops stood around with their hands on their pistols, managing only to prevent parents from rescuing their children. We do not have a shortage of police. We have bad practice in marshaling those we have.
Lord, give me what You have made me want.
January 11, 2024
Despite the cold, I went to the river to soak in the amazing light. River as high as it could be without flooding– though I discovered it had flooded under the railroad trestle in RDA. Quantities of mallards took to the air, and I saw with the Canadas a blue goose, which I’m not sure I ever saw in the wild before.
Discovered the GALA selections are “Alleluia” (Thompson) [which we’ve attempted several times and messed up each time], Wagner’s Pilgrim’s Chorus, the tired “Over the Rainbow” we’ve been doing for four years. Nothing new. Not a shiver of imagination. We will not be laughed out of the hall, but we will make no impression. Oh well. One is committed.
Found my new prayer, from Anselm of Canterbury: Lord, give me what You have made me want.
January 10, 2024
Went to LaZ Boy and bought a new sofa. I’d been fussing with ways to make the old one suffice– the middle seat is collapsed; it’s too low and difficult for me now to get up from–until I wondered “Why?” Why make the old one suffice? I do tend to let ideas box me in. When I sabbaticaled in Ireland in 1995 I kept repeating the phrase, “the trip of a lifetime” until I considered why is it the trip of a lifetime? Why can’t I go every damn year? And I did.
Pale blue and flamingo in the north that I can see from my study window.
January 9, 2024
Unbelievable inclemency: rain, thunder, lightning; chants from the Valaam Monastery trying to cut the dread.
Rose full of energy to write and paint and not be turned aside from my intent by any number of defeats.
Painting steadily, but as it’s reworking old works, not adding to the trove of canvasses. I read in The New York Review of Books a description of Pissarro and Cezanne that also works for me: They possessed a gift for visual inquiry without any particular talent for painting.
The exterminator guy was here to check the basement. He lives in Candler, and said Hominy Creek is already at people’s front doors.
Cancellation of Symphony Chorus tonight like winning the lottery.
Susan Stevenson is dead.
January 7, 2024
Left to my own devices, I wandered down to the hotel bar and met three jolly companions. Andrew was middle-aged and serious and kind and ended up paying everybody’s tab. Tom was blond and young and rambunctious and warrior-resembling, and the local bail bondsman. He told an anecdote about the county prison which I didn’t understand. He is currently remaking his double-wide to make it liveable. He in the middle, young and quite beautiful, wouldn’t tell his real name, but kept calling the bartended “Dad.” Drink had limited their communication skills, but they were happy and friendly and ready to embrace the entire world. Yes, loud too, but it was an almost empty bar. Their mirth gave me mine in full measure, and I left the bar blessing them and the accident that had sent me down at the right time. Gorgeous sunrise, then a pretty much uneventful (if tedious) return. The hotel bill, after various taxes and fees, was half again what I expected.
C read the manuscript of RF, liked it, and of course recognized all the Akron names and places.
Home now, facing the melancholy task of taking down the Christmas decorations.
January 6, 2024
Epiphany
The most inclement weather conceivable short of hurricane. The sea is white here and gray there for reasons I don’t completely understand. Formidable, terrible, delightful. I can lounge about all day feeling storm-tossed and melancholy. The line between sky and sea is erased.
Yesterday we had a leisurely breakfast, then chartered a boat with Captain PD– a tiny, tiny boat with room enough only for the people who were in it– and toured the river and various creeks, braving the actual ocean only briefly, because of the terrible wind. The guy at the hotel told us the boat would cancel because of the weather, but it didn’t. Captain PD said he almost canceled, but didn’t. This did not inspire confidence. The sea was choppy, but I didn’t get sick, which was a relief. Wind was the real issue, so cold and constant that the last hour of the tour was misery, though each of us determined not to be the one who said, “Ok, enough.” Captain PD fished a duck decoy out of the water. It concerned him for reasons not fully articulated. As promised, we saw many a dolphin, lovely and gleaming and fluid, mostly arcing out of the water side by side so two or three looked like one animal. I kept wondering how they stood the cold. At one point a bull, interested in a cow (is that what she’s called?) tossed a baby out of the way with some brutality, it seemed to us. Maybe that’s everyday to a young dolphin. Our physical discomfort is what will likely stick with us, and our grim refusal to admit to it. The Captain paused and detoured and extended, searching for wildlife, wanting to give us our money’s worth, so he is blameless. L and I limped to the car incapacitated by cold; J bent over from having to go to the bathroom so bad. In time it will be hilarious.
They’re off, and I return to my accustomed (and capacious) solitude.
Storm abated. Lunch at the Jack of Cups, by far the best cuisine at Folly.
Mist came: the end of the pier and all but the close breaking waves disappeared.
Laughing voices in on the patio below my window.
January 5, 2024
Brilliant sun upon the waves. Did my first to-the-end-of-the-pier hike, fighting off arctic wind on one side and solar fire on the other. You could pass quite close to the roosting grackles, for if they moved, they’d have to move into the slashing wind. There’s barely a second that’s not a negotiation between pain and exhaustion and the will to move forward.
Long strange dreams. In one, Maud came back and sat on my lap and we discussed our life together, she telling the points that made her happy and the points that I, mostly unwittingly, had chosen wrong. I was grateful to have all that out in the open.
January 4, 2024
Most glorious morning. Walked to the beach, having to avert my eyes from the glory in the east. Filled my lungs with sea air. Many Amish from Indiana at the hotel, very jolly and playful. Somehow didn’t expect that. Sat in the hotel lobby writing until driven out by the melancholy operation of taking down the Christmas decorations.
Ate at Rita’s.
Drive out to island’s end, where you hike across the dune for a glimpse of the rusty lighthouse. We saw many dolphins where the river widens into the sea, and those riven trees that whiten and float across the water and set themselves up into a ghostly forest. Pattering of sanderlings across the beach. They were tame and came quite close. The day was cold but immaculate, a pale blue gray in every corner of the sky.
January 3, 2024
Fifth floor of the Tides in Folly Beach. Travel tedious & uneventful, except for the unexpected gastric urgency that makes me wonder if tours or long flights are the best things for me, yet. The tide is low. The puffy clouds are flat at the bottom, as though sitting on glass. I had forgotten how enormous pelicans are. When I plugged the computer in, it started up at the part of Messiah where it was when I shut it off– “from shame and spitting.”
A strange thing happened during the drive. I let the radio dwell on one of those Christian stations that seem to cover entire states. After half an hour, I underwent a sort of conversion, difficult to describe or explain. I didn’t move, but my position refined and clarified, spirit pointing to True North. Paul on the Road to the Beach, blinded and eyes opened. What an odd thing.
Town all but empty. Dinner with J and L at the Bounty Bar, not a soul there but us.
January 2, 2024
Slept hard through much of yesterday, confusing exhaustion for illness.
Inspired by an announcement in email, I got together a chapbook of my riverside poems, those written in the last year at my picnic table beside the French Broad. Going through the files, I had to read some of them to remember what they were about, if they could be included. Twenty-eight pages.
Phone call interrupted an amazing dream. Some friends and I had, apparently, been time-traveling, and had been captured by ancient Mesopotamians. We thought we were in trouble until they asked us if we could chant Sumerian holy chants, and we listened hard and it turned out that we could. We chanted so well, adding our own flourishes, that we had become a pop phenomenon in ancient Sumer, where they could, somehow, project what we were singing in blue letters across the night sky.
Resolutions? Not to watch corrupt cop videos. They enrage me and make me hyper-vigilant.
CK has died.
January 1, 2024
Managed to watch twenty minutes of the Rose Parade.
Annual New Year’s Eve party was easier for me this year, as I was very gradual in preparation, doing one important thing a day every day after Christmas. Little dread or anxiety, as in years past. However, fewer people came than expected, and added to my natural propensity to over-prepare, the mountain of leftovers this morning was daunting. Much dumping and running of the disposal, load after load in the dishwasher. I find such wastefulness appalling, but I don’t know what to do about it this one day of the year. I could have hosted three parties on the food prepared for one. I should learn, year by year, but fear the appearance of meagerness. DJ’s ramp centered on the front steps, and it was sad–as well as funny-- to see my guests, many of them quite elderly now, inching their cautious way up the staircase, looking for a hand to steady them.
DJ saw a fox as he rumbled home. An omen.
Hosts of crows cawing in the garden, claiming bits of the party foods I threw out for them.
R gave me a strudel, chocolate-y and nutty and rich.
December 28, 2023
Fourth Day of Christmas. The clouds parted and the brilliant moon woke me before morning.
Finished the Fun House revision.
Baked mint chocolate chip cookies. Called for green food coloring, but all I had was red, so, red mint.
Made my first mess of collard greens. Froze them to take out for the party. Laying in party supplies at the ½ price sales the groceries have after Christmas.
Tall kindly girl with many piercings helped me buy sausages.
December 26, 2023
Feast of Saint Stephan.
Christmas card from Loretto in Dublin.
Raining so bitterly hard that all plans to go out have to be altered, which is fine with me. First thing when I looked out the window, a fat opossum waddled through my garden gate and across the street: an image, I think, of bounty in the coming year.
