A Good Time

 

May 21, 2023

Back in Asheville before noon, at first through considerable rain, barreling through without a stop. Went grocery shopping and hacked out four days’ worth of culms (some so tall they had to be taken down in stages) before 1 PM. Then a joyful revery on the back porch, eating the sandwich I had bought. The garden stood in perfect beauty. I thought of my valediction to the desk girl at the hotel, “Thanks! I had a good time.” It made me think that on my last day I, going on, will turn to my Host and say, “Thanks! I had a good time.” 

The Seal of the Cats

 

May 20, 2023

Performed last night at St. James Episcopal on James Island. Across the street is Something Anglican (maybe St James) a monument to the horrible split in the Southern churches over the question of gay rights. I think their inviting us was to some degree a gesture across the street. We did not do superbly, but well enough to justify coming here. D F, our founding director, is now music director there. He must have toned down many levels. He kept talking about how old and near-the-end he was, being 62. 

A is dead at 59. S reports it was a suicide.

Lovely day already, and it’s just past noon. First full visitation from Housekeeping, which gladdens my soul. 

Watched life on the pier, many insufficient fish being caught. Every identifiably heterosexual couple was mixed-race, the ten-colored gods be praised. On the pier, fifty feet from any body, in a stiff wind, I could smell coconut sun-tan oil. 

R sent me photos of visiting Maud’s grave, which I had described to him, and of A spreading daisy flowers over it. I was sitting on the hotel terrace bar, amid a hundred youngsters drinking and reveling, and I burst into sobs. No one looked at me, so I dwelt in perfect solitude until I worked it out of my system. I might feel foolish mourning my cat for so long, but I don’t. The grief feels clean, like a flash of light on the sea waves. And, it’s not just for Maud. She was the Seal of the Cats, after whom there will be no other. I look through the memory of her to the memory of six cats who gave me comfort and mirth through the middle of my life, when it was needed. Jocasta the hidden. Theseus, my sweet boy. Titus the burly. Conrad the secret sharer. Circe the gentle hearted. Maud the mysterious. Homage. Honor. Thankfulness. 

 

May 19, 2023

Misty morning. People with metal finders speckle the beach, looking for treasure thrown up by the waves. Surfers speckle the ocean, taking advantage of the still hilly waves. The whole panorama is after-storm. Walked the beach a little, then the pier, where there were many fishers, white people, interestingly, on one side, black people on the other. One of the black people caught a baby shark. Surreptitiously to suggest he throw it back, I said, “Can you eat that?” He gave me a recipe for grilled shark with lemon butter. Grackles were everywhere, engaged in either forage, rape, or warfare, but loud in every case. Dolphins sported toward Charleston, looking exactly as I portray them in my paintings. Tossed a crouton to a female grackle at Rita’s, then attacked a salad far mightier than I. 

Storm at Sea

 

May 18, 2023

Slept a rich sleep, turning off the light at 9:30. The sea in your ear is different from the mountain night in your ear, uniform, mesmerizing, at once calming and wildly melancholy. Cloudy and gray this morning. I’ll feel all Romantic Poet walking down the beach. 

Walked the fresh, blond new pier. Out at the end encountered a thin but considerable shoal of jellyfish, about as big as mixing bowls, with a fringe of red between bell and tentacles. Nobody I pointed them feverishly out to seemed to be as enthralled as I. 

Can’t help noting that I have been here 4 times (recently) and this time marks by far the greatest ease of motion. I have more actual pain in my legs, but I walk and walk and am not exhausted nor out of breath. To get away from a storm hitting while I was on the pier, I did something approaching a run. My legs and feet were in agony yesterday; today, not a twinge. Imponderable. 

I love hotel life, except that you’re never sure when the goddam Housekeeping will appear. 

*

Lunch at Planet Follywood. Raw burger and nasty slaw, but good vodka tonics and good company, jolly waitresses and Dan, whose dad was an English professor. Dan and the waitresses discussed a recent death by DUI where they’re trying to sue every bar where the perp might have had a drink. MADD is one of those organizations which has gone several steps beyond its original good idea. 

Bought two t-shirts so far when I didn’t actually need any. 

When I went back to the room, housekeeping was two rooms away, so I expected them at any minute. Two hours later I opened the door to see what happened, and a “Do not disturb” sign flew off my door. I hadn’t put it there. I guess housekeeping got overwhelmed and just decided to skip, and decided to have an excuse. Sooner or later everything happens. 

Storm, the sea whipped into frenzy. I rather like it. One group of gulls stands far back from the water, another stands right up against it. 

The hotel has an excellent native beach garden. Loved the painted leaf, which I don’t believe I’d seen before.

Housekeeping came, an Asian woman who had no English. She replaced the towels, emptied the trash, but didn’t touch the bed. I was working at a table nearby, and I think she was afraid to come near me. 

I retain the impulse to pick up men on the street. I note body language, calculate strategies. It’s sweetly nostalgic now, like an old soccer star roaming the pitch and remembering. 

Wind so strong the water in the toilet is agitated.

Folly Beach

 

May 17, 2023

Packed and ready for the beach. Sleep plans were interrupted by weird sound outside my window. I’m still not sure what they were, but I interpreted them as raccoons trying to dig back into the house. I struggled into some shoes and went out, half naked, with a baton in one hand and a flashlight in the other to confront the enemy. Once out, I realized the sounds came from across the street, and were much louder than I’d thought. Even after searching the internet I’m not sure what it was: almost a sci-fi noise, a high bubbling sound repeated at some length. Woodchuck is the best bet, but they usually don’t go on like that, endangering themselves with volume.

Tides Hotel, Folly Beach 6th floor at the very end, overlooking the newly restored pier. The drive was endangered enough by construction not to be fully boring. Strong warm breeze in my window. Maybe, in terms of view, the best room in the hotel. 

Shut off the air-conditioning, opened the door to the sea.

Gout was my co-pilot this morning, right front toe, which made pressing the gas pedal for five hours a fascinating endeavor. In fact, limping and in considerable discomfort the whole day. Best to have been driving.

Black-headed gulls fly close to my window, as if expecting a hand-out. Now that I know that’s the culture, they will not be long disappointed. 

Dinner at the hotel– because of torrential rain. . Perfect salmon, salad as gritty as if they’d dragged it across the beach. The rain knocked out the hotel elevators and flooded nearby streets as high as the middle of the hubcaps of parked cars. 

 May 16, 2023

After three days of neglect, I hacked out 71 bamboo culms, some more the eight feet tall. Looking forward with dread to coming home from the beach, in this regard. Packing without feline interference. It’s miserable. 

Vestry largely uneventful. I’m not good at administration. It’s blessed that I stayed away from it by instinct, and so made no colossal blunders,

Evening: stupendous thunderstorm. Lovely. Close rain, distant thunder.

 

May 15, 2023

Something almost unprecedented happened this morning: I didn’t wake till past 11 AM. Probably exhaustion after the Mother’s Day concert at First Baptist last night. We had a large crowd, most of whom were hearing that music for the first time. Theater companies and choirs wish their audiences were a little less elderly. How did we do? I went errorless, though also hoarse and weak-voiced from too much singing and too much pollen. I think we did well. I do not have the most discerning ear. K is pissed at me for something, but, searching my conscience, I can’t determine what. He could barely stand to shake my hand. It’s a Southern tradition never to tell the person who’s offended you the offence, so that it may rankle and spread. We’re both Midwesterners, so perhaps that won’t happen, or perhaps I’m imagining everything. 

Cramps in the night after standing so long for the concert. I used to leap up and try to curse and hobble the cramp into submission. Now I lie there, try to find a better position, pray until it goes away. It does. 

SB has died.