May 13, 2021
Began a revision of The Nurseryman’s Wedding, which is all there, but could be carved closer to the bone. After that I had a day on the town, such as has not happened in more than a year. Had hot chocolate at Rhu’s. Ate salad and drank pale beer at Barley’s. Bought an image of Avolaketisvara on Wall Street. Walked far and uphill, and was not breathless or exhausted, this last being the major joy of it all
May 12, 2021
Double Zoom meetings, overlapping, the first with the Community Advisory for Blue Ridge Public Radio, the second for Y’s unfolding and initial play contest. I felt my attention eroding after I’d gotten the point of each. The radio station wants to expand its number of listeners, adding young people and non-whites if at all possible. Most of the suggestions of how to do that were purely performative: things that sound enlightened when you put them on a list but really make no actual difference at all; create talking heads programs for ever slimmer minorities to join the talking heads which are at this moment not listened to. Left the meeting early to watch Jeopardy.
May 11, 2021
Strange exhaustion in the morning, so that I wasn’t fit for work until after noon. But then I continued my program of revising and sending out plays, and after that set up two water gardens. What must be done every day, fine or torrent, is chopping out the new bamboo shoots, that would take over the world if I let them. J has Covid, and was taken to one hospital, then transferred to another. It is impossible to know when things like this are routine and when they are dire.
May 8, 2021
Lay down for a nap, and when I rose saw two rabbits hopping across the street to my garden. A little later I peeked out the back window and saw them chasing each other round and round the iris bed. Blessed.
Rose this morning, and when it was barely light I was at the Hard Times Trailhead, determined to see if there was anything new on the lake. Surrounded for a few minutes by a large and raucous throng of joggers, who, however, soon left me behind in something resembling quiet. Big Canadas thronged the edges of the lake, but nothing else that I could see. A number of anglers dropped their hooks in the water. I went to the far side of the lake, into the wetlands and beyond, where in a park-like grove of considerable beauty, I realized I’d gained an escort of phoebes. They followed me with their gentle body language, their brilliant black eyes. The forest is lush now, the floor filled in with vegetation, the roof filling in with leaves. I was captivated by a scent, sort of bergamot-meets-lily, which my app identified as Autumn olive. It was ravishing. When I got home my research suggested that Autumn olive is an invasive alien and I should not have been deriving pleasure from it. It certainly was abundant against the open path.
My not having received my seeds from Eden Brothers had become a kind of frenzy, so it was well when I returned from the mountain and discovered they’d arrived. Dug, hoed, planted. Feel a sense of relief and closure: spring can actually move forward now. Twelve packets planted, three packets left to plant, with half the weekend yet before me.
Tired on the trail and in the garden, but never out of breath.
Fixed the motor for the pool with little fuss, but sat at the table eating lunch when I heard the breaker thrown again. A short somewhere. I congratulate myself even to know that.
A nearly perfect day.
May 7, 2021
Day, cool and bright. The iris are coming into full glory, along with the peonies. I paid less attention than I might to graduations and harmonizations of color in the garden. It’s gaudy, like a burning dye factory.
Most of the last week spent revising and sending out plays. I was happy.
L’s adoration of Trump seems not to be political, but based on the notion that he is a new and budding Christian and he should be given the benefit of the doubt because he is Christian, and that all attacks on him are anti-Christian. Of all descriptions of Trump, “Christian” seems to me the most ludicrous, unless one means simply “not Jewish.” Her certainty comes from someone whose name she dare not name (evidently a member of his security team), but who is close to Trump, and vouches for the sincerity of his conversion. I have no more information than this, as I vowed at the outset NOT to discuss this one specific person. Ever. Most of the convictions of the Right seem to be based on unverifiable witness. The FACT that the data does not exist in any accessible form seems to be an argument in its favor, secret knowledge that only the chosen initiate would know, or that the Enemies of God would see with their own eyes but not believe.
