Storm

 

July 29, 2023

Woke with one of the rarest things in my life– a headache. Massaging various places seems to have gotten rid of it. 

Heat. Rabbits crowd into the maple shade, nibbling whatever they can reach from there. 

Turkeys are daily visitors, a growing flock, now with three adults and more chicks than I’m able to count. 

Almost impossible not to sleep.

Crisis in Biltmore. It’s almost preferable to be challenged where one has no resources at all, as crises tend to slide into the bailiwicks of those who actually know what to do. Sometimes I’m that person; sometimes I’m not. As this unfolded, a sudden storm arose. Came home to find a significant flock of turkeys sheltering behind my shed.

Not invited to W’s wedding. I cringe a little as the photos appear on Facebook. I try to remind myself that, all in all, I mostly would rather stay home. Maybe not this time, but–

 

July 28, 2023

Second of four rehearsals for the one-act festival. K was out for bronchitis, so the others are ahead of us. O and I struggled through. I have most of my lines– all of them if I trusted myself. Comfortable on the stage again. K says I was “always entertaining.” Determined to take that as praise. The two plays I’ve read beside ours are dreadful. K says no one-act festival (by which she means 10 minute play festival) next year. Selection of plays by committee is generally a bad idea. Her good news is that someone has bought the building who is friendly to the arts, and to the theater specifically, with plans for improvement. It’s well somebody catches a break. 

Heat wave continues. I water the garden once an evening, to keep it alive. My two fans and open back door (despite the bears) seem to keep me cool enough. That the Earth will become Venus seems, on certain days, plausible. All that striving and struggle for nothing. 

Gallons of bitter iced tea. 

Finished a big, big painting. 

 

July 26, 2023

Finished The Lexington Tract almost exactly on the stroke of noon.

Writing by the river. 

 July 25, 2023

Mother’s birthday, one year short of a century. I post her photo on Face Book and some people think she’s still alive. I do not correct them. 

Watered the thirsting garden.

Spend time at the Toyota dealership, getting inspected and tuned up to drive for another year. I cannot make the coffee machine work. The process takes half the time I expected it to. The night flies by with extravagant dreams. 

 

July 24, 2023

Went to the river to write. Did so. Many dogs were abroad, and when I sat down, a cream colored Husky/German shepherd mix named Pancho turned from what he was doing and ran straight for me. The look on his face was such gleeful mischief that I had to laugh even as he launched through the air toward me. A second later he was on the picnic table, scattering my phone and books, and taking my nose full in his mouth. I suppose that was his idiom. His master was upset until he saw that I didn’t care. 

 

July 23, 2023

J and I motored down to the Peace Center in Greenville yesterday to see the musical Six, in which the six wives of Henry VIII vie to win a contest as to which of them suffered most. It had nothing to recommend it but the energetic dedication of the young women playing the parts. The music was loud, inane, repetitious, the script nothing more than the outline of an unwritten play set to music, as if time or imagination had at the outset run out. Worthless and expensive. The money spent on that useless production could have fueled every theater in Asheville for two years. Impromptu supper with the usual suspects once we got back into town. We sat outside, relishing the cool evening breezes. 

Raccoons chittering under my window last night. 

Return to church after many weeks. Canon A gave an uninspired sermon, quoting Taylor Swift. Did not sit in choir. People around me remarked what a beautiful voice I had. Secretly, I must have hoped for that. 

 

July 21, 2023

Turbulent vestry meeting. I have lived a life dedicated to avoiding situations about which I can do nothing, so when they arise anyway, I am unarmed. 

S phoned from DC, his young voice breaking whatever gloom I was in. Senators and Supreme Court justices eat at his restaurant.