June 6, 2009
Saturday morning. Jason fled his wife’s unloving friend to my house last night. He cooked gigantic steaks in the iron pan, the sky threatening to rain on any barbecue. We talked and watched arctic-themed horror movies. We stood under the beautiful moon in the deep shadow of the back yard, and talked. He believes insight into the soul is derived from whether you see a man or a rabbit in the moon. As for me, I had never seen such darkness as in the shadows between the matches of moonlight.
The night ended with the only hissing cat-fight we have had among the three feline remnants. Have no idea what the issue was.
Some psychological obstruction let loose yesterday, and I bought passage to Dublin, to bridge the time between Allison’s wedding and Saint Patrick’s Well in New York.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
June 4, 2009
Linda drove up from Atlanta for a visit. She makes me regard closely the ways my life would have been different had I had a family. I certainly would have had less time to brood on my own ends.
We went to NC Stage to see I Wrote This Play So You Would Love Me, an original piece by Anne Thibault, an actress I’d seen in their Proof. As a playwright, I tend to be hypercritical of other living playwrights’ works, but this play was well performed and very well written, funny and immediate. It has the air of a showcase (it’s hard to imagine anyone but Thibault herself doing it), but if I were a producer or a casting director watching it, I would be convinced. Hans was droll and touching as all the men in her life. The house was sparse, and the people on both sides of us left at intermission. They were old folks, so maybe the language was just too salty, or the discourse on rim jobs just too precise. Zambra’s for tapas afterward, where Matt Shepherd, looking very Mediterranean, took care of us.
We talked about how Linda’s children can be so good looking when none of us are.
Toured the Carl Sandburg in Flat Rock. I had been there with TD, but remembered only the goats. The goats are still there, playful and oblivious– they reminded me of giant cats. What I’ll remember most this time is the lone goose hunkered down in the grass by the pond, almost close enough to touch, but still wild. Where was her flock? Bought a CD of frog calls. Linda headed home and I headed to the studio, where I painted with J until a few minutes ago. He already has a sort of harem there, people streaming in for his advice on painting and, I think, sometimes just to bask in his warmth.
Linda drove up from Atlanta for a visit. She makes me regard closely the ways my life would have been different had I had a family. I certainly would have had less time to brood on my own ends.
We went to NC Stage to see I Wrote This Play So You Would Love Me, an original piece by Anne Thibault, an actress I’d seen in their Proof. As a playwright, I tend to be hypercritical of other living playwrights’ works, but this play was well performed and very well written, funny and immediate. It has the air of a showcase (it’s hard to imagine anyone but Thibault herself doing it), but if I were a producer or a casting director watching it, I would be convinced. Hans was droll and touching as all the men in her life. The house was sparse, and the people on both sides of us left at intermission. They were old folks, so maybe the language was just too salty, or the discourse on rim jobs just too precise. Zambra’s for tapas afterward, where Matt Shepherd, looking very Mediterranean, took care of us.
We talked about how Linda’s children can be so good looking when none of us are.
Toured the Carl Sandburg in Flat Rock. I had been there with TD, but remembered only the goats. The goats are still there, playful and oblivious– they reminded me of giant cats. What I’ll remember most this time is the lone goose hunkered down in the grass by the pond, almost close enough to touch, but still wild. Where was her flock? Bought a CD of frog calls. Linda headed home and I headed to the studio, where I painted with J until a few minutes ago. He already has a sort of harem there, people streaming in for his advice on painting and, I think, sometimes just to bask in his warmth.
June 1, 2009
My parents’ anniversary.
Walked into the garden at dusk. Half a moon gleamed–gleams now-- at the zenith, pink clouds eastward, the rest the most perfect, flawless azure blue. The great mulleins–five of them–lift their ruffly pinnacles twice as high and thrice as thick as anything else, sturdy, masculine, assertive, the emerald yang of twilight. A heavy scent lies on everything, mostly honeysuckle, but mingled with rose and ghost white madonna lily, and the grass I weed-whacked into submission at the end of the morning. Everything is magic. If the garden stretched a hundred miles in every direction, just as it is, it would make a separate world, and men would lie down under the blossoms and dream dreams that themselves would becomes worlds. The lavish calling of a mockingbird from the telephone wire threw me back to the convent school on Green Spring Valley Road in Baltimore County– St Mary’s?–where thirty summers ago I walked at dusk amid the calling of mockingbirds. There was a constellation of fireflies then that is not matched here, perhaps is matched nowhere now in this diminished world. I remember distinctly watching the fireflies and hearing the mockingbirds and praying “Let me remember this moment forever.” And so I have, this portion of forever, anyway. I have been fortunate mostly to remember the things I longed in the moment to remember: the shell-pink moon rising over South Carolina as I drove to some lecture or reading; the red bat over the pool in the deepest part of the forest; my pugilist lover in the Sauna on Ormond Quay; T’s smell as he lay in my arms; the moon rising over the road to Tobar at the edge of the Burren; the gypsy singers on Temple Square; the light of morning in the tiny patch of wilderness, as it then was, at the edge of my father’s lawn. I must have longed for these things purely, for they, and a dozen more, perhaps, like them have stayed with me, and so far as I know, there is none in all the world that shares them with me. They go when I go. Perhaps I should say, they abide where I abide.
Reception at NC Stage to welcome the new season. Except for the actors, I knew very few of the people there, who were mostly (I suppose) rich and old. I’ve seen or been in all of them, so I’ll go for the nuance rather than the discovery.
My parents’ anniversary.
Walked into the garden at dusk. Half a moon gleamed–gleams now-- at the zenith, pink clouds eastward, the rest the most perfect, flawless azure blue. The great mulleins–five of them–lift their ruffly pinnacles twice as high and thrice as thick as anything else, sturdy, masculine, assertive, the emerald yang of twilight. A heavy scent lies on everything, mostly honeysuckle, but mingled with rose and ghost white madonna lily, and the grass I weed-whacked into submission at the end of the morning. Everything is magic. If the garden stretched a hundred miles in every direction, just as it is, it would make a separate world, and men would lie down under the blossoms and dream dreams that themselves would becomes worlds. The lavish calling of a mockingbird from the telephone wire threw me back to the convent school on Green Spring Valley Road in Baltimore County– St Mary’s?–where thirty summers ago I walked at dusk amid the calling of mockingbirds. There was a constellation of fireflies then that is not matched here, perhaps is matched nowhere now in this diminished world. I remember distinctly watching the fireflies and hearing the mockingbirds and praying “Let me remember this moment forever.” And so I have, this portion of forever, anyway. I have been fortunate mostly to remember the things I longed in the moment to remember: the shell-pink moon rising over South Carolina as I drove to some lecture or reading; the red bat over the pool in the deepest part of the forest; my pugilist lover in the Sauna on Ormond Quay; T’s smell as he lay in my arms; the moon rising over the road to Tobar at the edge of the Burren; the gypsy singers on Temple Square; the light of morning in the tiny patch of wilderness, as it then was, at the edge of my father’s lawn. I must have longed for these things purely, for they, and a dozen more, perhaps, like them have stayed with me, and so far as I know, there is none in all the world that shares them with me. They go when I go. Perhaps I should say, they abide where I abide.
Reception at NC Stage to welcome the new season. Except for the actors, I knew very few of the people there, who were mostly (I suppose) rich and old. I’ve seen or been in all of them, so I’ll go for the nuance rather than the discovery.
Monday, June 1, 2009
May 31, 2009
I’ve loved the days since school was out, painting, gardening, working out, writing, going out in the evening or not. It is a rhythm of immense calm and productivity, the only anxiety being how to extend it as long as possible. I remember this feeling from my graduate school days, when I appreciated it less. I regret agreeing to teach summer school, though if I can ease that into the rhythm, all might be well. I have not bought my annual summer ticket to Europe, wanting nothing to interfere.
Personnel for The Beautiful Johanna are falling into place. Only Terence and Trudy remain to be cast.
The last Titanic survivor has died. That seems an age and more ago.
Night. End of a day of great beauty. I spent too much of it napping, but I felt the beauty of it wax and flow like a bank of wind-driven cloud.
I’ve loved the days since school was out, painting, gardening, working out, writing, going out in the evening or not. It is a rhythm of immense calm and productivity, the only anxiety being how to extend it as long as possible. I remember this feeling from my graduate school days, when I appreciated it less. I regret agreeing to teach summer school, though if I can ease that into the rhythm, all might be well. I have not bought my annual summer ticket to Europe, wanting nothing to interfere.
Personnel for The Beautiful Johanna are falling into place. Only Terence and Trudy remain to be cast.
The last Titanic survivor has died. That seems an age and more ago.
Night. End of a day of great beauty. I spent too much of it napping, but I felt the beauty of it wax and flow like a bank of wind-driven cloud.
May 27, 2009
I broke the ten minute mile on the cross-trainer at the Y this morning: 9.57. Nothing for somebody else: big deal for me. Discovered the Woodfin Y. Got Jason to join.
Saw a squirrel hit by a police cruiser. The animal got into the middle of the street and was confused, rushing from one wheel to the other, finally leaping straight up and colliding with the car’s grill. But afterwards the squirrel zoomed to the side of the road, no longer conflicted, perhaps whole and hale. The cruiser kept moving, oblivious to the drama under its wheels.
Fasting fills the day with brief naps and the naps with fantastic dreams.
The Beautiful Johanna has been chosen for a Catalyst slot at the beginning of January.
Birthday party for DJ at the Usual. Three tables were full of almost everyone I had invited. He said it was only the 2nd birthday cake he had ever had. A success, I think.
I broke the ten minute mile on the cross-trainer at the Y this morning: 9.57. Nothing for somebody else: big deal for me. Discovered the Woodfin Y. Got Jason to join.
Saw a squirrel hit by a police cruiser. The animal got into the middle of the street and was confused, rushing from one wheel to the other, finally leaping straight up and colliding with the car’s grill. But afterwards the squirrel zoomed to the side of the road, no longer conflicted, perhaps whole and hale. The cruiser kept moving, oblivious to the drama under its wheels.
Fasting fills the day with brief naps and the naps with fantastic dreams.
The Beautiful Johanna has been chosen for a Catalyst slot at the beginning of January.
Birthday party for DJ at the Usual. Three tables were full of almost everyone I had invited. He said it was only the 2nd birthday cake he had ever had. A success, I think.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)