High

 October 8, 2024

The odd energy of waiting for time to pass. Try to sleep as long and often as I can. Try not to eat and use the energy of being hungry as something to think about. Walk from night stand to workbench looking for a place to type; they’re all wrong for various reasons. It’s the workbench now, keyboard tipped against my legs and the screen almost flush with the bench.

Met me grandnephew Stetson, a happy, imperturbable child. He will be a blessing to everyone he meets. His parents seem rightfully to regard him with wonder. Photos of me and Stetson playing, in which he looks joyful and I look incredibly old. Everyone finds them cute.

Spent yesterday in downtown Alpharetta. It would be possible to spend only one day there, having, I think, exhausted most of its scenic and social possibilities. Visited the Arts Center, which is a classroom with drawings on the wall. Sat in a park on Milton Road (the one where I watched the fireworks two Fourths of July ago) and wrote, and wrote a little more in the lobby of the Hampton Hotel, which seems like home to me after several stays. The writing has not yet come to much. I’m trying to write about the hurricane. It’s possible that it will not be written of.

I feel thwarted even in my lamentation, for I am safe and among family and my property is intact and my suffering is immeasurably less than almost anyone I know. But I am totally disoriented, at sea, futile. I think “I cannot endure to the end of this,” knowing I must.

Hurricane Milton slams into Florida. I resent a storm coming so soon, to dilute attention on us. It might be bigger than Helene. I stop myself from thinking “at least it aimed somewhere else.”

Asheville water authority sends out the message that it will charge fees on water bills not paid in a timely fashion.

Drove the perils of 400 into Atlanta to visit the High Museum, where I checked in with my Madonna.

Elegant supper in downtown Alpharetta.