October 9, 2008
Late night after a very long day. Snarled at a student. She is self-delighted and uncorrectable in a writing workshop, where such attitude must be set aside. Though I’ve been able to jolly over it till now, today’s notion that all her mistakes were intentional–and therefore not mistakes– was over the line. Why waste our time? I too have entered classes to be praised rather than corrected, but when the inevitable disappointment came, I had at least the presence of mind to suffer in silence.
Roof not finished. Roofers invisible.
Ken and John did not come to measure the windows, though at least their check is still taped to the door.
Return to voice lessons. Frogged my way through Vaughn Williams and Mahler.
Good rehearsal at church, and a happy session at Usual Suspects afterward. I was, though, beyond exhaustion into that exhaustion-sickness which you think is something worse until you lie down on the bed.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
October 8, 2008
Rain. Though it’s mostly black paper, no rain has come through my roof. I thank either the workmen’s skill or my own spells laid against invasion from the air.
Sat in the evening light and wrote poetry, and was happy in the old way, the way I though had passed from me. Bless, and bless.
Michael’s funeral unlocked a range of funereal thoughts. One is that I will be wrestling with my father for a long time, wondering if the strange calm of my emotions after his death was because I am an unnatural monster or because he was not the father one mourns over with real agony of spirit. I howled in Oakwood cemetery in Syracuse for months over my mother, summer nights and winter days, when I was sure nobody would hear me. I sobbed helplessly with Conrad the cat lying under the pear tree. I cried for father, but not because of missing him. It was because he had missed himself. When the thought of him brings grief, it is for what might have been. I think of certain anecdotes I know of his youth, before he became frozen into the man we knew, and I think of the ways so many paths could have led to beauty, but not, particularly, the one he took. I dislike thinking this, except sometimes I think I am right. At the funeral in Ohio I watched the other branch of the family, fully engaged with their emotions, affectionate, complicated (irritating and embarrassing goes along with that), and I envied them so much their access to one another’s inner lives. No such thing was apparent, implied, or even available in the house I grew up in. It was so important not to be irritating or embarrassing that the rest was lost too. Mother, who was part of the lively branch and could have communicated its bounty to me, had it crushed out of her by the weight of his repression before I has a chance to see much of it. He was a small man, but he had access to us when we were smaller still, and, though I can’t speak for my sister, the ways in which my upbringing retarded my emotional life cannot be fathomed or forgiven. They are also at this point irrelevant, for I found my own ways to the healing fountains, or learned to live without. If I turn away now from blame, I must also admit that I cannot conjure up posthumously the kind of love he would have scorned, but which now seems appropriate to the death of a parent. I cannot love him in the ways he never taught me, or even allowed me–in so far as he could prevent it–to learn. I do feel bad for his suffering, for the many disappointments of his life. I feel bad that I must have been one of them. I feel bad that he is gone. I feel worse that he was never there for me, though I think he was fully present –to his salvation–at the end for the neighborhood kids and his grandsons. Bless and bless for that. I blame myself sometimes for not making it better. But it was quite late before I discovered there were other ways. I was happy in a tiny patch of garden, and only introduction to the Wide World made me sad thereafter, sad enough to seek for more. I have no memory of being hugged or cuddled or cherished or confided in by either one of my parents. I think she was too sick too long not to follow his lead. He was– I have no idea what he was. He did not love and sought to embarrass all love around him, and I was not wise enough to see it, or strong enough to overcome it. This is a small, silly thing now, but a true one, and the branch bent in that way cannot ever fully straighten.
Father, please send your ghost to me with some beautiful truth or remembrance that will change everything.
Uncharacteristically, I am already packed for Ireland. The mail is stopped, the New York Times suspended, the cat food hoarded. Emotionally I am already there.
Rain. Though it’s mostly black paper, no rain has come through my roof. I thank either the workmen’s skill or my own spells laid against invasion from the air.
Sat in the evening light and wrote poetry, and was happy in the old way, the way I though had passed from me. Bless, and bless.
Michael’s funeral unlocked a range of funereal thoughts. One is that I will be wrestling with my father for a long time, wondering if the strange calm of my emotions after his death was because I am an unnatural monster or because he was not the father one mourns over with real agony of spirit. I howled in Oakwood cemetery in Syracuse for months over my mother, summer nights and winter days, when I was sure nobody would hear me. I sobbed helplessly with Conrad the cat lying under the pear tree. I cried for father, but not because of missing him. It was because he had missed himself. When the thought of him brings grief, it is for what might have been. I think of certain anecdotes I know of his youth, before he became frozen into the man we knew, and I think of the ways so many paths could have led to beauty, but not, particularly, the one he took. I dislike thinking this, except sometimes I think I am right. At the funeral in Ohio I watched the other branch of the family, fully engaged with their emotions, affectionate, complicated (irritating and embarrassing goes along with that), and I envied them so much their access to one another’s inner lives. No such thing was apparent, implied, or even available in the house I grew up in. It was so important not to be irritating or embarrassing that the rest was lost too. Mother, who was part of the lively branch and could have communicated its bounty to me, had it crushed out of her by the weight of his repression before I has a chance to see much of it. He was a small man, but he had access to us when we were smaller still, and, though I can’t speak for my sister, the ways in which my upbringing retarded my emotional life cannot be fathomed or forgiven. They are also at this point irrelevant, for I found my own ways to the healing fountains, or learned to live without. If I turn away now from blame, I must also admit that I cannot conjure up posthumously the kind of love he would have scorned, but which now seems appropriate to the death of a parent. I cannot love him in the ways he never taught me, or even allowed me–in so far as he could prevent it–to learn. I do feel bad for his suffering, for the many disappointments of his life. I feel bad that I must have been one of them. I feel bad that he is gone. I feel worse that he was never there for me, though I think he was fully present –to his salvation–at the end for the neighborhood kids and his grandsons. Bless and bless for that. I blame myself sometimes for not making it better. But it was quite late before I discovered there were other ways. I was happy in a tiny patch of garden, and only introduction to the Wide World made me sad thereafter, sad enough to seek for more. I have no memory of being hugged or cuddled or cherished or confided in by either one of my parents. I think she was too sick too long not to follow his lead. He was– I have no idea what he was. He did not love and sought to embarrass all love around him, and I was not wise enough to see it, or strong enough to overcome it. This is a small, silly thing now, but a true one, and the branch bent in that way cannot ever fully straighten.
Father, please send your ghost to me with some beautiful truth or remembrance that will change everything.
Uncharacteristically, I am already packed for Ireland. The mail is stopped, the New York Times suspended, the cat food hoarded. Emotionally I am already there.
Googlewhack
October 6, 2008
A man in England whose email name is Stu Bear writes that I am a googlewhack, which is to say that my blog "In the Country of the Young" is the only site Google finds using the words "paedogogical stipulation." Why I used those words I can’t now imagine.
A man in England whose email name is Stu Bear writes that I am a googlewhack, which is to say that my blog "In the Country of the Young" is the only site Google finds using the words "paedogogical stipulation." Why I used those words I can’t now imagine.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
October 5, 2008
Very dark before morning. Beethoven on the CD. I returned in darkness last night and saw by the jagged outline of the porch roof that Scott and John had not finished the job. They phoned while I was away to ask for $2000 for hauling the old roof to the dump. I supposed that was a legitimate expense, but new elements do keep popping up in a process which has been protracted and discouraging. John’s voice on the phone sounds hang-dog and guilty.
The new furnace, maybe petulant from being ignored all summer, does not work. Furnaces always pitch their hissies on a Friday night or a Saturday, so nothing can be done for the longest possible period of time.
Searching through the papers ruined by the deluge from the ceiling, seeing what might be salvaged, what should just be tossed away. Have not swept up the fallen plaster. My own private Coventry.
Whirlwind visit to Ohio for Michael Minor’s funeral. The Prius does, in fact, get nearly 50 MPG on the highway, perhaps even surpassing its publicity. It allows you some control over this, giving you a gauge so you can, through adjustments in your driving, keep the MPG as high as possible. It is a game that makes the time on the road go faster.
Crappy Knights Inn in Jackson TWP. Hiked across several highways to Mulligan’s Bar, which I found as if by radar. Discovered later it was all my cousins’ favorite bar.
Church of the Lakes in Canton, Ohio is a big, raw building at the edge of the build-up and the country, with an enormous activities room and a little sanctuary, which gives some idea of its (correct) priorities. I hadn’t seen most of my family since Patrick’s wedding, but they seemed to know me, or to know I was coming. I’m just coming to understand what a figure Michael cut in the lives of the people who knew him. Each mention of is kindness, his bravery, his good looks, his regular-guy sweetness, his extraordinary spirituality and beauty of written expression, caused a catch in the throat and silence as the speaker tried to master his emotions. His big lugs of best buddies halted through their testimonials hardly able to speak for weeping. One of them delivered himself of a queer diatribe against evolution, evidently based on the notion that such a man as his friend could not be a fortuitous conglomeration of random atoms, but that was the only cringe-making moment. All was tender and sweet and damaged. Rick Summers, my cousin and Minor’s uncle, delivered a testimonial at once funny and touching, maybe the best I’ve even heard at such a time. His wife told of his bashful but determined courtship. It was clear here was a man whom the world could not well do without, and yet do without him it must, and whatever the balance between grief and rage was in the room, only God knows, and only God needs to know. My cousin Diane, Michael’s mother, was monumental, tragic, terrifying. She was a four-foot-ten icon of grief, hardly able to speak above a whisper, face a mask of agony, tears starting and stopping without their maker being fully away, groans of horror escaping her lips when she thought of why all the people were gathered, a blameless Niobe weeping for her first-born, her golden son. I thought if we were three generations back in the old country she could collapse in the dust, keening and wailing, and that would work some of that out of her heart. Diane alone inherited her father’s dark beauty, and avoided the ample Summers farmer nose. She was beautiful and frightening. She thanked me for coming. What could possibly be said, about that, about anything? She was a ticking bomb, waiting to find God so she could blow up in his face.
Lymphoma will not be reasoned with, will not be persuaded. It cannot be swayed by a mother’s grief, or a wife’s, or a friend’s. It cannot be convinced to choose someone less loved, less in love with life, or to retire itself for the world’s good.
I think we would be all right if we could find some way to break God’s heart.
I sat in the sanctuary myself in a mixture of rage and grief, realizing, astonishingly, that part of it, a minuscule, glittering iota way back in the corner, was drama. That I really did believe that behind all, all is well, and whatever sleep we enter, we wake to glory. It cannot be said, for the saying sounds hollow, but it can be cherished and pondered upon in secret.
At rest stop on the West Virginia turnpike I ought a CD of some Irish tenor singing Irish folksongs, listened to that through the pastel mountains, with the fat curve of the moon coming up, and all the west burnt orange. Wept every time "The Parting Glass" came by. I am such a cry-baby.
Red rose and scarlet dahlia welcome me back.
Goodnight, and joy be with you all.
Very dark before morning. Beethoven on the CD. I returned in darkness last night and saw by the jagged outline of the porch roof that Scott and John had not finished the job. They phoned while I was away to ask for $2000 for hauling the old roof to the dump. I supposed that was a legitimate expense, but new elements do keep popping up in a process which has been protracted and discouraging. John’s voice on the phone sounds hang-dog and guilty.
The new furnace, maybe petulant from being ignored all summer, does not work. Furnaces always pitch their hissies on a Friday night or a Saturday, so nothing can be done for the longest possible period of time.
Searching through the papers ruined by the deluge from the ceiling, seeing what might be salvaged, what should just be tossed away. Have not swept up the fallen plaster. My own private Coventry.
Whirlwind visit to Ohio for Michael Minor’s funeral. The Prius does, in fact, get nearly 50 MPG on the highway, perhaps even surpassing its publicity. It allows you some control over this, giving you a gauge so you can, through adjustments in your driving, keep the MPG as high as possible. It is a game that makes the time on the road go faster.
Crappy Knights Inn in Jackson TWP. Hiked across several highways to Mulligan’s Bar, which I found as if by radar. Discovered later it was all my cousins’ favorite bar.
Church of the Lakes in Canton, Ohio is a big, raw building at the edge of the build-up and the country, with an enormous activities room and a little sanctuary, which gives some idea of its (correct) priorities. I hadn’t seen most of my family since Patrick’s wedding, but they seemed to know me, or to know I was coming. I’m just coming to understand what a figure Michael cut in the lives of the people who knew him. Each mention of is kindness, his bravery, his good looks, his regular-guy sweetness, his extraordinary spirituality and beauty of written expression, caused a catch in the throat and silence as the speaker tried to master his emotions. His big lugs of best buddies halted through their testimonials hardly able to speak for weeping. One of them delivered himself of a queer diatribe against evolution, evidently based on the notion that such a man as his friend could not be a fortuitous conglomeration of random atoms, but that was the only cringe-making moment. All was tender and sweet and damaged. Rick Summers, my cousin and Minor’s uncle, delivered a testimonial at once funny and touching, maybe the best I’ve even heard at such a time. His wife told of his bashful but determined courtship. It was clear here was a man whom the world could not well do without, and yet do without him it must, and whatever the balance between grief and rage was in the room, only God knows, and only God needs to know. My cousin Diane, Michael’s mother, was monumental, tragic, terrifying. She was a four-foot-ten icon of grief, hardly able to speak above a whisper, face a mask of agony, tears starting and stopping without their maker being fully away, groans of horror escaping her lips when she thought of why all the people were gathered, a blameless Niobe weeping for her first-born, her golden son. I thought if we were three generations back in the old country she could collapse in the dust, keening and wailing, and that would work some of that out of her heart. Diane alone inherited her father’s dark beauty, and avoided the ample Summers farmer nose. She was beautiful and frightening. She thanked me for coming. What could possibly be said, about that, about anything? She was a ticking bomb, waiting to find God so she could blow up in his face.
Lymphoma will not be reasoned with, will not be persuaded. It cannot be swayed by a mother’s grief, or a wife’s, or a friend’s. It cannot be convinced to choose someone less loved, less in love with life, or to retire itself for the world’s good.
I think we would be all right if we could find some way to break God’s heart.
I sat in the sanctuary myself in a mixture of rage and grief, realizing, astonishingly, that part of it, a minuscule, glittering iota way back in the corner, was drama. That I really did believe that behind all, all is well, and whatever sleep we enter, we wake to glory. It cannot be said, for the saying sounds hollow, but it can be cherished and pondered upon in secret.
At rest stop on the West Virginia turnpike I ought a CD of some Irish tenor singing Irish folksongs, listened to that through the pastel mountains, with the fat curve of the moon coming up, and all the west burnt orange. Wept every time "The Parting Glass" came by. I am such a cry-baby.
Red rose and scarlet dahlia welcome me back.
Goodnight, and joy be with you all.
October 3, 2008
Jason says he wants to be my "assistant" after graduation. What I need to be assisted with I wouldn’t know how to explain, but the gesture is graceful nevertheless. Did invite him to share my new studio space. His presence may be my only hope for continuing as a painter. He says that he and his wife want to adopt me, and that when he is a rich and famous painter I will come and live in a wing of their house. Does take the anxiety out of my dotage. Jason is better than a son or a brother, for there is no bitter history behind the present joy.
Jason says he wants to be my "assistant" after graduation. What I need to be assisted with I wouldn’t know how to explain, but the gesture is graceful nevertheless. Did invite him to share my new studio space. His presence may be my only hope for continuing as a painter. He says that he and his wife want to adopt me, and that when he is a rich and famous painter I will come and live in a wing of their house. Does take the anxiety out of my dotage. Jason is better than a son or a brother, for there is no bitter history behind the present joy.
October 2, 2008
Brian Charles Rooney, my first Gaveston, receives a great one-line review in the New York Times for his role in a musical called Bedbugs. It seems actually to be about bedbugs. It calls him the highlight of the show. He looks buff in the photo, too.
Have decided to drive to Ohio for Michael’s funeral. It is so rare to have a weekend free that I took that as a sign.
Brian Charles Rooney, my first Gaveston, receives a great one-line review in the New York Times for his role in a musical called Bedbugs. It seems actually to be about bedbugs. It calls him the highlight of the show. He looks buff in the photo, too.
Have decided to drive to Ohio for Michael’s funeral. It is so rare to have a weekend free that I took that as a sign.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
In Memoriam Michael Minor
October 1, 2008
My roof is bare and my roofers are nowhere to be seen.
In my email this afternoon:
Took down my show, Night, at the Flood Gallery. It was a melancholy task. Two paintings sold, about enough to pay for framing. No reviews, of course. I have no idea how the works affected anybody. Is it silly? Is it sublime? No one says– which leads me to believe it’s rather closer to silly. September started with Anna Livia in Chicago and Night at the river-front, and however bubbling with expectation I might have been, both ended in disappointment. Is to have experienced these things and felt disappointment after better than not to have experienced them? Yes. Take that, Buddha.
This has actually been quite a hellacious half year.
My roof is bare and my roofers are nowhere to be seen.
In my email this afternoon:
My grief over cousin Michael is inexplicable, except as it is symbolic. You shouldn’t fight so hard and lose. You shouldn’t have so many people pulling for you and lose. We stand our ground and shake our fists at the gods. In one sense it is absurd. In the other, it is a necessity of iron and diamond.This is JP. Jenny asked me to post this update. I think it is only fitting
that while I was on the phone with her, Joe Ross walked in my front door. So we
sit here together trying to communicate to you the events of the last 48 hours.
Mike is at rest. 2:30 am the morning of October 1, 2008 Mike seamlessly and
peacefully moved from the loving grasp of Jenny’s arms into the restful embrace
of the Lord’s arms. He was surrounded by friends and family. Some sang, most
prayed, and all cried. We packed up Mike and Jenny’s things and left the
‘clink’.
We made sure he knew we love him, and that we would be okay, that
Jenny would be okay. That we are proud of him. That the impact he made on the
lives he touched would last forever. That we are all blessed to have known Mike
and are better for it. That no one can ever say they fought harder or more nobly
than him. Cancer didn’t beat Mike, it may have ended his time on earth, but not
for one second did it ever beat Mike Minor!
Join his family and friends at
Church of the Lakes as we celebrate the life of Mike Minor. Calling hours will
be Friday, October 3rd, 2008 from 6:00 to 9:00 pm. The funeral service will be
Saturday, October 4th, 2008 at 11:00 am. Church of the Lakes is located at: 5944
Fulton Drive Canton, OH 44718
Took down my show, Night, at the Flood Gallery. It was a melancholy task. Two paintings sold, about enough to pay for framing. No reviews, of course. I have no idea how the works affected anybody. Is it silly? Is it sublime? No one says– which leads me to believe it’s rather closer to silly. September started with Anna Livia in Chicago and Night at the river-front, and however bubbling with expectation I might have been, both ended in disappointment. Is to have experienced these things and felt disappointment after better than not to have experienced them? Yes. Take that, Buddha.
This has actually been quite a hellacious half year.
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