October 3, 2024

Alpharetta, after a tedious but uneventful drive through the South. Wind damage evident as far as Columbia. Had an elegant seafood lunch in honor of L’s birthday. The view from L’s basement windows is almost paradisal, a rough garden, a little stream flowing beyond, shaded by trees and elephant ears. First decent sleep since last Thursday, though the police, looking for an intruder, swept the yard for a while with powerful flashlights. The beam a few times came directly through the window, hurting my eyes even from a distance. I wondered if I could be seen, glaring back. Had to scuttle a spider out of the sink before I used it this morning.  Didn’t want to begin my tenure here by drowning the original inhabitants. Rode to Dahlonaga to look at a house the family is considering buying, a chalet perched on a cliff in the grizzly woods. Met my new great-nephew David Theodore, unbelievably tiny and steadily asleep. In the afternoon J and I were talking in the back yard, and a phoebe approached, brave and unafraid. He hunted and pecked a little in the garden, but seemed more deeply interested in J, and finally perched twice on his hand, pecking it a little as if testing it out for taste.

L is infinitely more family-oriented than I. Duty to family inspires an Ohio trip in a few weeks, and buying the house in the woods is all about family gatherings. I cannot use the word “family” without a slight tinge of irony. I reacted to lack of family cohesion by mistrusting all things bearing that name. She reacted to it by creating her own.