September 20, 2015

Went to bed last night with a mouthful of pills, deciding that the rest of my life would probably involve combinations of ibuprofen to dull the effects of arthritis. Rose, however, mostly without pain, electric with energy, bounding up the stairs I had dragged myself up the night before. Perhaps it was just exhaustion. The chancellor’s installation was to some degree an institutional circle-jerk–everyone thanking one another until you wanted to burst into tears–but the speeches were occasionally memorable, and to have nice people in positions of power again–at last– is worth the annihilated morning. The people beside me were playing some kind of words game, or else sending notes back and forth. Talked with Alan a long time, after a long time. Came home and dug a new garden between the plot of the hibiscus and the plot of the eggplants. This was a big undertaking, and at one point I was literally, finally, incapable of going on with it. My body was in complete shut-down. Drank copiously, rested a little, finished the job. Don’t remember feeling that unanswerably spent since those days when I had to swim length after length of the pool to get my Lifesaving merit badge. Didn’t like it either time. I haven’t had carbs (other than those in wine) for two weeks, so I set it down to that.
   
The installation made me sad, for reasons other than the expenditure of time. I had leisure to think of my career in academia, and its seems to have been rather. . . I don’t know. . . not what I expected. I have no idea what figure I cut in others’ eyes, and perhaps that adds to the uncertainty of the image of myself in my own eyes. I have done right by my students, and that’s what I set out to do. But that seems not to be precisely what was expected. I am in limbo, not knowing what to do if not what I was doing.
   
Cleaned a closet before dawn came. Linda’s wedding pictures showed me that my sports coats are ridiculous, the hems coming down nearly to my knees. How many times did I go out thinking I was looking fine? I’m not a mirror-gazer, and when I do, I do not always know what to regard. I think the gout has rendered all my dress shoes unwearable, and I had to wear electric blue sneaks to the installation. Just one thing after another.
   
Gray dawn now. I woke urgently needing to transplant two roses I had set in uncongenial ground.

September 19, 2015

Marco was coming out of the Wedge as I was going in, a merry meeting after far too long.

Had a moment to sit in the garden as the magic hour of dusk alighted. Began to build an altar near the east fence, in a ring Stewart had used as a fire pit. My heart yearns for the spirit, and the news from Black Mountain Press took the weight of hatred and despair off it, at least for the while. The Spirit must yearn in return, the tiniest bit, enough to keep an ant going in the desert– or if not to yearn, to allow the yearning. Anyway, people at a certain time in their lives will not credit how good it is to wake without weeping.

Incredible dreams. Receiving a massage, I had a vivid vision of a long road through forests, where I had never been. I wanted to ask Zach if he were thinking of that, if somehow his thought was communicating to me. I was too near sleep to put it into words.
   
First Humanities exam. Generally a slaughterhouse, though some had perfect or near perfect scores. In my head constantly: “I said this five times. How could you not remember?”

Chancellor’s installation in a few hours. She’s the seventh at this institution, and I have known them all.

September 18, 2015

So tired I almost didn’t make it home from Waynesville last night. My passengers didn’t help, one silent and they other glued to her phone. Its white light kept making me think a car was approaching close on my right side.

 Ran into TJC at Westgate. She manages to look beautiful every single time.

September 17, 2015

Was first off book for the first scene last night–tech is four weeks away, so we might be overachieving a little–so I gave the afternoon over to, instead of memorizing, planting roses, three new ones that came from Oregon. Quiet satisfaction.

Read to honor the new Chancellor in the Whitman Room. She was not present, which I think was bad form. We were meant to understand she is buried under the duties of her installation, but, on the other hand, it might show where the arts lie in her list of priorities. I liked what I read, two sections of "The Law of Christ among the Birds." They sounded well in the air.

September 16, 2015

Hideous drive to Waynesville last night– traffic jammed practically from the moment we turned onto the freeway, intensified by a truck that had burned to its wheels, sealing the eastbound lanes of 40 for ten miles anyway. Tried to get the rehearsals back in Asheville, but the one of us–one of five–who lives in Waynesville snapped, “I signed up to do a play in Waynesville.” The land around us was so beautiful we almost forgot the irritation. The rehearsal was pretty awful, too, I didn’t know my lines as well as I’d thought, and I felt awkward on stage. Second time through was better. Home in the darkness. Didn’t realize there were stars until I was standing in my own yard.

September 15, 2015

Sent The Mermaid to GPTC. Showed my students Zen monks and whirling Dervishes. The Dervishes struck my soul, if not theirs. To dance in the Mind of God—, Brilliant day. Preparing for the dark drive to Waynesville and back. Injured my shoulders in the weight room. Venus, then, high in the east. God cannot salvage my life, though I give him permission to try.

September 14, 2015

A South African whose hands were blown off by a letter bomb preached in church yesterday, on forgiveness not as something given outright, but as a contract between the offender and the offended.
   
Note from Jolene that Black Mountain Press wants to publish Night, Sleep, and the Dreams of Lovers. Went immediately into caution mode, considering all the things that can, and almost certainly will, go wrong. I wanted to go into ecstasy mode. The gods wanted me to go into ecstasy mode, but in their case it was so the mockery would be keener when it went wrong. Of course, it may not go wrong. What will I do then?
   
Cool nights. Flurry of roses.