Hiawatha

 

October 11, 2024

Retrieved a CD player (acquired but never used) from the riverfront office, discovering that I do have a broadcast radio and, Internet or no, can have the sound of a human voice in my house. Listened to the Sixteen performing the Eton Songbook by dim light, writing, reading Traherne and The Song of Hiawatha, an evening of almost perfect bliss amid the ruins.

Read Lao Tzu at the car dealership and Traherne at my desk at night. What a collision is there, one renouncing with a wry smile, the other gathering in with both arms, wanting life to be richer and richer, battening on the bounty of the soul. I am in Traherne’s camp, of course, though the old mendicant clears the air. 

Added a single figure to Forest Edge and made it my favorite painting. 

Rose early and gardened. Needed a jacket, and then I didn’t. Planted and mulched daffodils, iris, autumn crocus, those onion-like flowers that I don’t remember the name of and can’t look up because there is no Internet. Allium. 

I am happy at my house.

I am miserable away from it.

These truths should be part of the equation, but clearly they are not.