New Year's Eve

December 31, 2014

 Sit down to record on the last day of the year without, truly, much of the summarizing or reminiscing impulse. Forging ahead, I tell myself. Prying myself from 62 after 24 years and coming here, a better residence in every way, is the big story. My own reaction amuses me, though, for I recognize a certain reluctance to be fully pleased, lest the universe decide I need to pay for my contentment with some unforeseen tribulation. I can barely contain the excitement I have at seeing what my first full spring will look like here, after the planting I have done. Seattle, Vienna, Budapest, less traveling than I would have liked, but I wanted time to curl up and know my new house, dig the fresh dirt. In the long passionate, agonizing affair with God, I found a way to block him, or at least the pain he causes by what appears to a mere mortal as cruelty, and betrayal. It is to trade heroic love for peace, something I spent fifty decades willing myself not to did, and yet, finally, did. One can weep only so much. One can wait only so long. If there must be faith on one side, there must be a little pity–or honor–on the other. Betrayed at love, one finds a way to render the bitter weapons of the lover harmless, and moves on. This is the core of Eastern religions, and I never recognized it until I lived it. Even now I entertain a voice back in the convolutions of the mind whispering, “it must be how He wanted it.” –having not, I suppose, utterly let go.
   
When I think of the faces of the year, I think of S, I think of the singers at the Kodaly whose earnestness and application were not, I understand now, American. Maybe I would say it was Magyar if I knew more. I think of B, who has the courage to call himself an asshole but doesn’t quite realize he really is one– self-recognition without the will to reform. I think– well, the images shift like the surface of waters.
    I must have written something. I can’t think now what it was.
    – writing amid the outsized bouquets in the hotel in Seattle
    – crossing the Danube bridges
    —Medea with my students
    –-watching the movers carry my possessions through the swirling snow
    ---sitting in darkness in my walled garden, weeping such tears that would have turned a heart of stone.
    –the various musics
    –the dreams after which I woke smiling
    – the big flower with white petals in starlight, which is what I see now when I close my eyes.

Sixth Day of Christmas

December 30, 2014

Walked in the dark of the morning in the neighborhood. Walked in the light first at the Bird sanctuary on Beaver Lake, the at the Botanical Garden.  People tell stories of the wonderful things they see at the Sanctuary. I saw a woodpecker, and on the lake a coot, appearing and disappearing, though he gave me great calm riding upon the calm waters like that, they white and gold with dawn.
   
A boy I knew before he was born came to my house to sell me cutlery, which I knew I was going to buy–without needing–before he started his spiel. The inevitably alone was so exhausting I cold barely sit through his presentation. He was very professional, though I couldn’t get my attention off the dandruff in his eyebrow. The things that throw us off! His hand was torn off in an accident, and then reattached. It seems to work fine, in this age of miracles.
   
Baked a failed cake, from which I learned much. It actually tasted OK, but I used the wrong sized pan (though the one I was instructed to use) and it was mean and thin.
   
I think I have pinkeye. The Internet says it’s viral and I should just wait it out. It also says it can be related to the respiratory infection I’ve had since Thanksgiving. Coughing and rifting, coughing and rifting. . . .
   
Preventing myself from feeling exultant at finishing both books I had set out to revise. How would I celebrate if I permitted myself to celebrate? Maybe in the New Year I will discover this

Fifth Day of Christmas

December 29, 2014


Z sold me some knives. I finished The Falls of the Wyona.

Fourth Day of Christmas

December 28, 2014

Holy Innocents.

Third Day of Christman

December 27, 2014

The Way turns to the left and to the right, to the east and to the west. The Way does not act, and yet everything gets done.

Yesterday was the day of fixing things. Today will be the day of not fixing things.

Returned to the gym, whereby I am energized. Energy is one of the things you must spend to acquire.

I always assume that the simple solution will not work for me. That may have been true once, but it has ruled everything after.

Hours before light. I am keeping the night’s secrets by not writing any more.

St. Stephen

December 26, 2014

The program for Christmas Eve in Marshall rendered my name as “Hoak,” and gave my address as “All Souls Crescent.”

My winter soul-coughing sometimes makes me lightheaded to the point where I almost pass out. It is especially fascinating when it happens on the road. I feel my consciousness shrink until it is a little box of everything I can still see, surrounded by wide borders of darkness. My ears ring. There is an odd taste, or sensation of taste. I feel myself willing myself to stay conscious, to hold on just long enough, hands gripping the wheel, eyes pulling themselves wide. Even the enclosed life has its little perils and adventures.

Went to see Into the Woods. I sat with elderly lesbians of my acquaintance. It is a sensational movie, a great one, with inspired casting and inspired performances. I felt as I feel about the stage play, that it goes on too long, that Sondheim goes on after he has left his depth. I cannot make that argument, though, without conceding that most things in this world go on after they have left their depth.

Too much cabbage.

First Day of Christmas

December 25, 2014

Full morning Christmas Day. The service at Marshall Presbyterian was unexpectedly sweet and moving. I would not have thought I was in good voice,; nevertheless I sang it the best I ever had, and felt proud to have given them a gift on Christmas Eve. Dalton’s teacher came from Mars Hill to hear him, which I thought was sweet beyond belief. All the handsome redneck boys in their best flannel shirts were asleep with their mouths open and their heads tilted back. I compared that experience to All Souls, one rough and faulty, the other refined and, as far as I could tell, perfect. Would the people of Marshall prefer the floating silvery perfection? Would they come to us if they could, have us if they could, or would they find us cold and forbidding? Certainly we overflowed into the library (where there was a television showing the sanctuary) and they did not. I don’t know. My affections are mildly with Marshall at this point, for I had not stood and held twenty pounds of music to the point that my back seized up then. Plus, they handed me an envelope full of money. Enjoyed the music we did at AS this year, though I had to ration my perpetually-phlegm-ravaged voice to get through it. Sopranos on either side. Kept me on my mark. I remember being moved in soul on Christmas Eve. Would love to have that back again.
   
Pale blue fleeced with clouds through my tiny study window. Plans for the day, which I am determined neither to rush nor to regret.