Feast of the Nativity

 

December 25, 2023

Feast of the Nativity

Gathering in Alpharetta, the growing clan and a few friends. Recipients seemed to like the paintings I brought as gifts. Drove back into the mountains in time for our Christmas Eve service, which ended a little after midnight this morning. The service seemed lovely, but solemn, a very Episcopal celebration. The bishop had fun whirling the thurible about. I was in good enough voice. Moon moving toward full. Vodka when I got home, because I couldn’t sleep. Santa passed me over again. But it’s all right. 

Learned I can drive to Atlanta and back on less than a tank of gas. Being one who fills the tank whenever the needle hits 1/4, I’d never put it to the test. 

Worked on The Riding Fun House, baked molasses spice cookies, listened to carols on the radio.  Listened to our Christmas Eve performance on You Tube. I never know what to think about our sound. It’s probably affected in some way by position or recording apparatus, but to me it’s a little disappointing. The trebles sound aged and wobbly. The uncertain places are not the result of practice or direction, but deficiencies, I think, of individual voices, which in a volunteer organization cannot be helped. Great rain for the Nativity. 

 December 23, 2023

Hilton Hamilton “Curio” in Alpharetta. Driving was horrendous. Two dead stops for traffic accidents on 85, neither of which appeared to have produced injuries or fatalities. Too many cars, too many traveling at once, and I but adding to it. If asked what holiday gift I most wanted all my life I would say, “not to travel on Christmas.” What have I done for fifty years? Traveled on Christmas. Sweet day despite all. The jacket I brought is too heavy. Wandered little downtown Alpharetta. “Fragile” was the unexpected word that seemed to describe it all. Hosted my own little party in the hotel bar, J, L, J, D abd I, which was more festive and jolly than could have been anticipated. Good start to Christmas.

 

December 22, 2023

Ended the longest night with a trip to the Y and a brisk work-out. 

Call from Wells Fargo. One J B–unknown to me– wrote himself a check on my account for $4632+.  He must have intercepted a check at the mailbox. This may explain why credit cards have been reporting missed payments when I never allow such a thing. One suspects the mailman. Who else has access? I wonder how it’s done, though one probably can’t ask. 

Very strange: I’ve brimmed more with the “Christmas Spirit”–whatever that might actually be– than at any time since I was a kid. I listen to Christmas music for hours, paintbrush in hand, perfectly happy. I sit beside the lit tree thinking– who knows? Peaceful and expectant. It’s sweet. I’ll stop trying to explain it. 

Bach Christmas Oratorio. 

Much praised on Facebook for a painting of the French Broad at the Solstice, that took me one evening to do. It painted itself, though I don’t know how to explain that so it doesn’t sound like a wisecrack. In writing, too, speed– or at least dispatch– has been the mark of doing it right. I pay for that with the agony of publication. Which way would I have rather had it? 

Longest Night

 

December 21, 2023

Solstice, cold and bright. I went to the riverside determined to write, and I did. Concentration allowed me to ignore the cold, which lessened, anyway, minute by minute as the sun climbed. A woman carried her cat to the bank and let him play in the shallows. Her dog, in a white jacket, followed. The dog greeted me briefly, sat by me, maybe because I hogged the best patch of sun. Geese floated on the far side, as did a dark bird I could not identify (damn these glasses) which moved with amazing speed without taking to the air. Something in that tableau opened the door to deep and for the most part unidentifiable grief. I crossed the river and climbed high into the dry, broken woods and wept. The cat was part of it. I miss my cats. I will be alone this Christmas for the first time in thirty-five years. But beyond that– desolation, isolation, futility beyond all cats. I sat in the wilderness where I could howl my spirit out without detection. Could hardly make it back to the car for exhaustion afterward. Still haven’t figured it out. My emotions were beyond my own understanding. They were bigger than I. Some cleansing power of the Solstice, perhaps. At the very depth, at the dark place beneath the darkest place, I hear my voice crying out please. . . please. . . please.  That the Lord will not answer is the stumbling block to all my faith. 

French Christmas music from the Internet.

 December 20, 2023

Darkening toward the Solstice.

Went to Marquee on Foundry Street to see if my application for a space has gained traction. R, the owner, didn’t seem to think that my work would be a good fit there. He didn’t say that, but, if I interpreted correctly, it was the vibe he gave out. In any case, no spaces were open– so he said–and I’ll be contacted when there are. Or not. I argued to myself that there were plenty weirder productions than mine. The space isn’t right for me, being just one step up from one of those tacky antiques malls where every redneck rents a stall, but I’m not sure what else to do. It’s a small commitment and small expenditure, so I hope it happens, if only to thin out the mass of artwork gathering in my attic. My gifts, though in some ways considerable, have never been especially crowd pleasing. I write books nobody wants to read, plays that nobody wants to see, paint paintings that only very peculiar people would want on their walls. I think of turning my energies to more poplar ways of doing things, but that would be worse, especially if it didn’t work. 

Lunch at Twelve Bones in cold, clear winter light. Most restaurant servings are too large for me these days. 

Massive restructuring of my portfolio.

Last night sitting in my living room and at times today I realized that I was happy, the happiness an underlying harmony that specific things being wrong did not compromise. 

Fifteen Thousand

 

December 19, 2023

To the Y early, early in the shocking cold. Something had dragged the egg shells away from where I put them in the garden. Something trying to subsist on empty egg shells in this bitter weather put pity into my heart. 

Signed on to my aol account after several years. Fifteen thousand unread messages. . . .ten of which may have been direct and personal to me. 

Another David Hopes– David Terence Hopes– is a physician in Plymouth, UK. Attractive man with a gentle voice.

Vestry: M used our time (for the 7th or 8th time) to weep over something happening in her life. Weeping garbled her speech so that I never knew what it was this time. 

Trump excluded (for the moment) from the Colorado ballot. The test of whether we are actually a government of laws and the Constitution is if Trump ends up in prison. If he does not, the way to every bully and strongman stands open. Where is our Lincoln? Is it Jack Smith?

Revery

 December 18, 2023

Vaughan-Williams wafting up from the device in the kitchen.

Baking disaster. Probably over-adapted one of those antique recipes that actually calls for oleo. Should have seen it coming, as something went wrong at every stage of the process. 

Places north and east of us sustained a terrible storm last night. Maybe the mountains protect us. But one of my dreams was of buying a house whose roof leaked. The other was getting back an item– a huge black watering can, I think– which TD had stolen from me. 

Amazed by the time my mind spends reviewing memories, most of them disturbing or disappointing, about wrongs I failed to right or actions of mine that time showed to be. . . or hinted might have been-- hurtful. Perhaps this is Purgatory, though whatever wisdom is meant to come out of repentance is diluted by the fact that, for the most part, given the information I had, I could not have done otherwise. Someone was in need, and I gave all, informed later, to the distant cackle of a mischievous universe, that it was not what was needed at all. 

        These things turning in my head, are they punishment or information? If information, how can they be used now that everyone else involved is gone?

Painted a quirky still-life. 

Studying Italian again. 

I think of nights when my family went out and I begged and begged to be left home, and when I was allowed, I stared at the Christmas lights in extended revery. I made them into roads and distant cities, intending somehow to walk there. Secret in my heart is the fact that I do the same these nights in a different century. Blessings for that, in any case.