September 26, 2025
Dim days, half rain, half gray light. A cloud of titmice at the feeders late in the afternoon.
Emotions roiling as though I were a teenager.
Hurricane anniversary weekend. We’re singing a commemoration program at First Baptist. Here’s an enigma: we have too many rehearsals and yet, at the same time, we are under-rehearsed.
Pride tomorrow. They predict considerable rain.
September 24, 2025
Productive time a riverside working on The School of Night.
Sound of turkeys racing around on the roof. Something gets into them every now and then and they fly up there.
Odd exhaustion. Two naps in one afternoon.
September 21, 2025
Lunch with DJ after church in the lingering autumnal afternoon light.
Thought of vocation. What was I actually called to do? Did I do it? The thought crossed my mind that the calling is not, at the end, as important as the doing, and that my real destiny was made by my clinging, step by step, to the path I set before myself. That thought was a benediction, for clinging to the path I set for myself is what I have done.
September 20, 2025
The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.
Woke laughing from a dream of some hilarity. I fell asleep on the sofa watching Seth Myers and Paul Rudd cavort in an episode of “Day Drunk,” and I carried that with me to bed, where the three of us were in a gift shop (or something) throwing things at one another and laughing till we were weak. Even when I rose to go to the bathroom everything I saw, everything I said to myself, seemed funny.
September 19, 2025
The most spectacular storm outside now since the hurricane. The wind roars. Thunder rolls from the south. If I’d carried out earlier plans I’d be on the road to Waynesville just now. Bad memories arise.
Pond pump out again. This fills me with stress, thinking of the creatures in the pond who depend on me, whether they know it or not, for their health. Maybe lightning will strike the pump back to life.
Coffee with K at the river. She told me of her plans for her new theater company, Phantom Lantern, and for her new baby, who should be born in Florida at the end of next month. Her new company will be largely improv, which leaves me out. I do understand the attraction of what needs no preparation and no rehearsal. The riverside café seems to have its full complement of chairs and picnic tables and gossiping clutches of caffeine hounds back, 11 ½ months after Helene.
