September 30, 2024

The one phone call I got from the world was from L. Amazing.

Trying not to have any shameful emotion about seeing the Marquee, which turned down my work because it was “spiritual” and “spiritual” doesn’t sell, completely submerged. I will think of the hundreds whose work is gone. Terrible thought occurred to me. I assumed the river office was on high enough ground, but maybe it wasn’t. If so, the poems of my youth, all my journals and notebooks and photo albums and theater memorabilia and scrapbooks are gone, the things I cherished most in my possession, perhaps cherished solely. They’ll still be either ruined are well when I return. Sadness fills me hour to hour, intensified by the realization that I’ve lost far less than most. I must force myself to keep making that comparison. 

I liked my life. I see no possibility of returning to it. 

I see no possibility of Asheville’s returning to what it was. The Asheville Era is over. A city that size, whose function is more ornamental than practical, cannot survive four weeks without water.

My mind is like a rat in a box, scurrying from one corner to the other, imagining that it’s missed some way out, that something will be different this time through.

Having brought clothes for three days, I made a trip to Walmart, where the workers were unexpectedly kind.

Wrote a bit of a play about the Army Corps of Engineers. Wandered aimlessly about town at sunset, wanting company but wanting nothing to eat or drink. Many spoke to me. I think I’m probably easy to speak to. 

But sad. Sad as night.