March 30, 2017

Wednesday nights end with rehearsal drinks at the Wayside, and usually I have Thursday free ahead of me, a generous and happy stretch of time. A little too staggery from iron deficiency to make best use of it, but it has gone well enough. Brief time at the studio. It was raining; most of my colleagues were in their cubicles working or having tea, and it was dark and soft and lovely. Picked my tax return up from CK. The return is not whopping, but good enough. The cost of preparing the return was, however, whopping. Maud is lying on my feet, fluttering around like a furry bird.

March 29, 2017

R and DJ and I see the last and darkest of the Wolverine films. One might respect the performances without actually having had a good time.

Good painting for a while, then bad painting, when one sets down the brush and takes a break. Chat with my studiomates, one of whom is actually living in her studio, which she needs to do in order to pay back her graduate school loans. She should be doing better than she’s doing. She makes her own dyes out of crushed berries and the like, then makes exquisite, detailed drawings out of that.

Tried to work the garden, and got a little transplanting accomplished, but my body literally failed me. It stopped. I couldn’t move, but only enough to climb the stairs and lie down. My iron content is at a crisis, and I don’t know how to take any more pills.

The good news is that Minos the Mystery Turtle is back in residence in my pond. My order of tadpoles and snails arrived from Indiana. My waterlogged family grows. I hope somebody’s in there eager to begin eating the ropes of green algae.

Purple and gold in the grass.

Finished The Book of the Roses. It’s either a novella or a 33 page short story.

Plans afoot to go to Ireland with L and J. Unexpectedly excited at the prospect.

March 28, 2017

Students in panic mode; many professors in panic mode in response. Playful morning dreams continue. They are a gift to make up for some horror I have, at the moment, blissfully forgotten.

March 26, 2017

Saturday was a day of accomplishment. Before light I wrote on my Hiram story. I assembled the second raised bed (easy for two, frustrating for one) filled it, bought soil and plants at Reems Creek, planted dicentria, bluebells, wake-robin, wood poppy, mayapple, jack-in-the-pulpit, six lilies that had ben languishing in the bulb in the cab of my truck. On their own violets ennoble the yard. Rested a little, had prosecco at Sovereign Remedies, took S to see Souvenir, a play about Florence Foster Jenkins at NC Stage, exemplary for complete harmony of performance, production, direction and acting, an evening of genuine pleasure. Wandered the streets afterwards, finally having Italian sodas at Old Europe, beside a heap of homeless bedding down in an alcove, one of whom offered me an exotic drug S had to explain to me. I remarked that S has seen, in Amsterdam, 2/3 of the drug use of my entire life. Must have used up my energies, for today has been the saga of creeping from one nap opportunity to the next, having slept in the first place to the unheard-of hour of 9. Voice held through both mass and rehearsal. Cantaria is an array of pop tunes through the foreseeable future, and I am sad as I can be. Life is too short to sing fluff. My life, anyway. Our interim is precise in ways Stephen was not.

Anniversary of mother’s death, forty three years ago. A whole solid life ago. I remember on the first anniversary I was in Syracuse. I skipped my evening poetry workshop, came home– home being the horrible cubicle on Adams Street– through a blizzard, lay on my mattress in the horrible room senseless with grief while slush and hail tapped on my window. The weather is better now. My bed is better.

March 24, 2017

Student admits she hasn’t been coming to class, asks if that is so very important. “You were vague about attendance requirements,” she says. I email her the paragraph from the syllabus which says that class is ALL important, that four absences lowers your grade one notch, etc. Wonder what she could possibly mean by “vague.”

Anyway, she shows up, and shows the best poem of her career.

Went to a meeting about establishing new minors and new programs. Two things amazed me. One is how politically ignorant I am (the politics of the institution of which I’ve been a part for 34 years). The other is how the people with the least to say INEVITABLY talk the longest.

Watched horror movies on TV.

Heart-dark yesterday, but again had joyful, even hilarious dreams. Some spiritual balancing act is being staged within.

March 23, 2017

Abundant time in the studio. SB bought two paintings, the nuthatch on textured paper on plywood, and the cedar waxwing on t-shirt glued to a slat of disarticulated dresser. Happy about that.

Hiked to the Ultra Café from the studio, sat at a table with a woman of about my age who was from Cleveland. We spent most of the time lamenting Trump.

Several of my students are entering panic mode. I must admit that some of my colleagues have pushed them there, and an ordeal of finesse appears before me: aiding my students without insulting my colleagues.

Worked in the garden. Fought off bouts of sharp-edged sadness. There is dull-edged sadness and sharp-edged sadness, and this is the sharp-edged.

But my voice held through rehearsal last night. I was happy. I gave praise.

March 22, 2017

We gave Will our blessing last night to become a priest. Excellent supper afterwards at the Corner Kitchen. A wine I’d had many times before was suddenly better than it had ever been. I sat at a place where a plaque said President Obama had sat before.

A purple haze covers my yard: it is the constellation of grape hyacinths, and the blue hyacinths which bloom–for some reason–much later than the yellow and red. The durable daffodils endure.

A curse lifted sometime last night, a shade of darkness that I cannot define and cannot find the source for. I would blame Venice, but I think I took it with me there. Went to sleep to distant lightning.