December 31, 2016

Pale blue through the upstairs study window. I have slept wondrous late. Baked cheesecake, have the two main dishes to prepare today, and to set the rooms for festivities. And to sleep, so to make it through to midnight. Defections already through sickness and making other plans at the last minute. I might once again be throwing away a couple hundred dollars worth of food.

Last night my father was a sinister ghost shaped, now that I think of it, like a spine. He came whispering terrible things into the room of the dream.

Odd, instant sickness, nausea and chills. I took a vitamin C pill, an iron pill, and an antacid all at one time. A mistake? Passing–

Facebook entries ask, “What was the most beautiful thing you saw this year?” “What was the best thing that happened this year?’ The best thing that happened is that I managed a truce in the war with God that’s been waged at least since I came to the South. The most beautiful thing? Moonlight on Saint Istvan? The Rijksmuseum? The two men in the café with hawks on their arms? Sam smiling?  Something I will remember hours from now and forget before I get it written down? The worst of course is the Fall of America, represented by the mixture of fear, cynicism, and drop-dead ignorance that got Trump elected President. Fear, cynicism, and drop-dead ignorance look to be the catchwords of the months to come, and those of good will must resist every move, every statement, every nano-second. Nor can there be any patience, any honeymoon period, any impulse of “wait and see,” for the lineaments of the enemy are fully known, and re-asserted by every public move. But to our power, hostility and hate,  Untamed reluctance, and revenge, tho' slow, Yet ever plotting . . . .Odd that his minions– who were the bugbears of times past–seem positively moderate in comparison.  We were not prepared. In our defense, it’s something out of comic opera that one could not credit ever coming to pass.  It is some other America never fully comprehended by the reasonable before.

If public fury must end one year, private lovingkindness must begin the next. And so--

December 30, 2016

Early early at the gym, working on the VIIth Canto in the café. The whirlpool, which I have been visiting for the sake of my legs, was immovably chocked even at that hour with adolescent girls, an unexpectedly repellent situation. Inconsiderate, at the least. Chat with Brent. Chat with a big happy galoot who kept calling me “bossman.”  Made a cauliflower casserole for the party. Bought supplies. Wondering what I’d say if somebody forced me into a valediction on the passing year. I’d say it was professionally the best in a decade, but a superstitious fear of courting the enmity of the gods would keep me from dwelling on it. They must hear only the unmodulated cry, “More!”

I must throw a party in order to have company on New Year’s. Among tribulations it is not great, but--

December 29, 2016

Wednesday spent painting, nearly the whole day at the studio, after the obligatory morning gym visit and writing session. It went well, and I see if I stuck to it time-wise as my neighbors do, I would have been able by now to fill a museum. Many visitors from Florida longing to experience “winter weather.” Good feeling on the second floor of the Phil Mechanic.

December 28, 2016

Met at the door of the gym. The dome when I left was turquoise, flawed at the edges by purple cloud.  Wrote at the gym and at High Five.  Decided to buy a Froggie the Gremlin toy from Ebay, in the course of which I rediscovered the Indian series Andy’s Place featured, which I loved as a child and which lingers in my imagination as something rich and strange. There I heard the phrase “first century” applied to Indian ruins, and I came to terms with time for the first time, reasoning that those beautiful things could not have been built in the very first century of man’s awakening. I learned that one first century we know; the other is yet to be discovered.  When I think of these things, or when I’m reading my Archaeology magazine, my bitterness at no longer teaching Humanities briefly returns. That the program needed me made no difference. The Boy’s reign was an early glimpse of Trump and his contempt for all things, regardless of worth, that are not him.

December 27, 2016

A day of gratifying accomplishment, beginning with a good workout, followed by writing in the bare bright café. The Racquet Club parking lot at dawn is becoming church, for looking up I behold a sky of shifting glory– today pale blue and flamingo and wholly aflame– and have occasion to praise the Maker.  Drove Brevard Road to get my car serviced. The sun continued his ascent, and I ran into a man whose dedication and attitude I long admired at the gym, B. He is a dentist from Michigan, and his breathtaking fitness is a result of fighting back from a terrible traffic accident. Went to High Five and wrote till my hands cramped up. Went to Lowe’s and bought throw-away houseplants for $1.99 each, determined to nurse them back to health. In this I follow my sister’s path.  Potted and watered them. Invented and baked a pistachio cake for Saturday night. The batter was delicious, and it held together through the rigors of de-panning, so I assume it went right.

Actually, the day began in mystery. I was hauling the trash and recycling bins to the street when I heard a noise-- a call, then a kind of flutter-- in the dark corner. I said,”Whatever you are, welcome. I mean you no harm. I’m just taking out the trash.”

December 26, 2016

Customarily rapid Christmas. Party in Alpharetta with family and their friends. I was happy, though my life is, by and large, less chaotic, and tumult takes some getting used to. All seems gratifyingly well there-- D1 on his way to Germany, D2 girlfriended up, L happier than I had ever seen her. One of L’s friends suggested the TV show Mozart in the Jungle, which I am watching now with pleasure. Terrible night’s sleep lengthened the drive home, which was again lengthened by 1/3 by congestion, traffic sometimes stopped dead on 85. The cause was always the police. You got to the bottleneck, and it was, every time, cops ticketing someone or showing their presence by parking two abreast into the lanes. I suppose traffic could just keep on speeding by, but that’s not how it works. A three and a half hour journey became five hours.

Went to R’s ramshackle manse on Cumberland to join in the decorating of a Christmas tree. Only when I left did I question why it was being decorated the day after Christmas. Both the Rs are gone, and this seemed an event organized by their daughter to continue a long tradition. I misunderstood the plan to “hang an ornament on the tree,” and brought one from my own tree, a red and green enamel star. They had boxes of dusty ornaments of their own which we were actually supposed to use, but I went ahead and left the star, since it was out of my pocket and the only one in the house with a usable hanger. I lingered maybe ten minutes, put to flight by the ambivalence I’d always felt going to that house, part the recognition of their personal kindness and importance to the cultural life of the city, part revulsion at truly toxic squalor. Strata of artifacts, household implements, theater memorabilia, toys, ancient food, personal memories are held together by aromatic grit. The house could be used as a set for Long Day’s Journey or The Royal Family after a good steam cleaning. Noting these things is a flaw on my part, but I acknowledged the flaw and fled into the spotless night. Daughter M showed me some photos of myself from Montford’s Olympias. It was shocking to me. I was beautiful. I was never used to thinking of myself in that way.

December 25, 2016

Dark morning which one assumes and believes to be bright. Long journey which one assumes will come to merry end. Silence in the house, which one hears as the final reverberation of secret song.