June 9, 1972 - Marigolds Buttercups & Columbines

Chalet and I just back from a long walk and for the 1st time today I feel "turned on". Earlier, so held back and uncertain I felt nothing. Now my cheeks are cool from the wind and the sun is lowering. The bluebells are still out - of a gorgeous blue, pink at their eginning - but the showy brilliant yellow flowers that were so bounteous along all the water courses last time are gone. I could not identify them but today we saw, as well, buttercups, red and yellow columines and so many other lovely & interesing growing things. I wish I could identify. The cool air moved them all so they spoke to me gently. I press herewith some poor and broken samples. I almost picked more but knew better - that they don't belong pressed in a book - they have a right to live out their lives where they originated just as the Indians did tho never had a chance to - (just finishing "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee", a title alone to wring your heart and tears from out your eyes.) Also here is a small section of what I call "horse's tail" - as I know it, a member of a family that comes in various sizes and is a remnant of the Pleistocene era (or some such) when it grew in a huge version. I have seen it along my way for years & somehow remember one particular time when I pulled the sections of a larger form apart and marveled at seeing frozen water crystals inside the hollow sections. Why do I remember that? I know.

The water did not sparkle to me today - not enough movement, I guess. It's quite cold, of course, as the last of the ice in Duluth Harbor disappeared only last Wed or Thurs. when the temp. reached 88*. Last night, however, a record was broken when it went down to 27*! Along the rocks today as I walked I could see them steam as an occasional splash of icy water sloshed surfaces warmed by an unhampered sun. I sat out on the rock most of the day, reading, as much out of the wind as I could comfortably arrange, as that my right cheek was warm and my left one was cool where the breeze instead of the sun struck it. I stretched out twice to nap and my face is quite red as a result.

62*
7:00 p.m.

Later

I was out there again, just now and the water is all shiny light blue, plashing up the rocks and pouring back upon itself like molten metal.

June 9, 1972 - Last-ditch Bulwark

I am again "home" and alone - my true home, my loved home - but w/o Douglas. He moved to his dad's last night for the summer and I came up here as an anaesthetic, as a last-ditch bulwark against what I knew I would feel alone there. I knew it would be far better to be alone here even tho tomorrow aft. I must still face the house alone - with no late-returning-home of my son.

I am not sure how it will work - his being out there. Not for me - I know that - but for him. Already he called me last night to sorrowfully tell me his father had decided not to get the St. Bernard pup he'd already told Doug they had! Interestingly enough Doug himself doubted his father's veracity and had an "I'll believe it when I see it" attitude. He had hoped for it so as a replacement for Kaila for whom he is still grieving. So already there is disappointment & disillusionment.

June 13, 1972 - Exorcised Ron

I thot last weekend I had exorcised Ron but evidently not. When I remember, not let him and not things we did or had together, but the feelings I felt while with him, I am still reduced, brought to tears. And, oddly enough, they are pleasant tears - I treasure them & those feelings. Is it feeling sorry for myself? No, it is not - it is re-enjoying in an elimental & therefore necessarily painful way, something beautiful.

June 13, 1972 - Return

"Our" maple tree has returned to us - has proved itself. Censpah has not let us down. It has triumphed again over winter and an unbelievable mauling by a determined and large and voracious pup. Kalia chewed Doug's young maple into a mutilated, split and crippled mess of ugly dead stems and I did absolutely despair for it. I loved the dog & missed her, but resented her ruining of this meaningful, growing thing. I had give it up but Doug saw it first & carefully watered, before I even noticed, one new brave sprout coming up on its own from the soil among its stunted brethren. And today it gives me joy. That single stem has leafed & branched out into a beautiful and precious life of tender green and rosy leaves, giving me, when I am awake and absorbent to it, faith and hope.

June 13, 1972 - I Wish I Were A Bush Pilot.

I wish I were a bush pilot. This would combine flying with desloate country and work with animals - three loves - almost too much to bear. I'm watching a Nat'l Geog. program on the Arctic Tundra - a country I love through my reading. Oh, how I love those men who devote their lives to this kind of work - studying & saving our vanishing valuables. This is why I wish I were a man. These men are most likely of no lasting use to a woman - any single woman - but - or, rather, so, I would rather be one than have one or count on one. And now the Julie London show - the other end of the scale, the spectrum - the ridiculous following the sublime. But what else is there to fill my void? I should be as beautiful, as talented, successful & wealthy as she is but I would rather, I swear to whatever gods there be, be a bush pilot!

May 27, 1972 - A Marvel

A marvel I have here - a smelt. Because of the late spring, the latest ice since 1896 or 1918, depending on whom you talk to, the poor smelt knew not when or where to run. So today as we traversed our rocky shore for the 1st time in 7 months we found smelt along the water's edge - all along in singles and groups - some still straight & silvery - others, higher, bent & brown & mishapen. I picked one up to examine it closely & was fascinated by the exquisite coloring and detailed anatomy which goes unseen by so many who flock & fight to capture hundreds of its kind but never look, really look, at the creature they covet so. Mine is about 7" long - light & silvery, almost pearly beneath - there is a narrow lavender or periwinkle line separating this from a darker dorsal side. The fins are delicate and fine - a large one in the center of the back - a funny small one different from the rest half way between this other fin & the tail which is double & pointed vertically into 2 separate fans. Ventrally, below the central dorsal fin, is a double fin - a pair of exuisite crystal fans delicately lies as are the others with a row of veins (?) which branch into 4 finer branches creating a transparent pattern of such beauty as to equal any work of Swedish crystal. Another pair of such fins are found at the base of the gills which are a tender pink in color. His mouth opens quite wide at each side with a transparent stitch of skin acting as a protective hinge fronted by a strange protrusion of firmer stuff that juts separately below the lower jaw. There are 2 tiny but very strong teeth evident on the front of his upper jaw - his lower jaw being lined all along the edge with finer points & what appears a tongue, a hard bony toothed extension hung down the center of his mouth. The large bulbous silver eye cases fill most of the upper part of his head inside. I am hampered by my lack of biological knowledge but I simply wanted to remind myself of the small magnificent marvels that surround us, unseen & unappreciated. One we saw had oozed a mass of yellow eggs (?) - called ____ - and the rocks were covered with tiny white globules, very sticky & hard to detach once touched, which, when pressured, popped to free a white ooze - were these smelt eggs? My guess today was they were & thus I educated Doug - poor boy, the captive audience of a frustrated & only - partly - informed naturalist mother - but we have fun!

Jonathan Swift = Life is a comedy for him who thinks and a tragedy for him who feels.

May 27, 1972 - We Are Home Again

We are home again, Doug, Chalet and I and a raw homecoming it was, too. The Duluth harbor is still locked in ice - true, it's largely broken up into great, rough, uneven chunks but the whole end of this arm of Lake Superior is white with deteriorating ice. We stopped outside of town alongside the interesting-looking building with the interesting & alliterative name of Limnological Laboratory & walked out to touch the ice - I picked up or lifted up a large chunk of ice which appeared clear & airless so transparent it was but as I raised what I would up & out of the water into the air it became a crystalline - [?] - sparkling clear & full of faceted holes reflecting sunlight.

Later - evening - we walked - we ran-along railroad tracks - we followed, watched, spied upon a dozen or more povers tip toeing along field rows, across roads, up & down the tracks, calling back & forth to each other, smart & neat - and now back tired & look out upon the lake and all I see is a solid backdrop of blue against which were only to be seen the pencilled sketches of bare birch trees, naked shrubs & tall grasses. Yet as I looked, trying to separate color from substance, to better name it, I became aware of a fine distinction between water & sky & then behold! There was a rare spot of color intruding upon the sameness - it was ghostly and strange and warm by contrast. We doused the light & saw, of course, it was the moon, a full, fat, orange moon I had not expected & as we watched it cleared itself from the veil & trailed its own train of color across the lake to us. It was our night, our world, our moon.

May 20, 1972 - Why I Can't Forget Him

(I haven't loved anyone except Ron in a very long time & that's why I can't forget him. When I feel love or loving I think of him and his sweetness his deepness and his thought-full-ness & his unhappiness and his misery and I love him and miss him all over again and I remember - oh, how I remember the pure joy I felt as he'd call each afternoon at work & I'd know as I drove home that he would soon be there - I would soon see him, be with him, within touching distance of him - he would be there within my life, part of my life - my love would have a place, a home - I would not be alone - my life was full of him - I loved & loving him, the world was beautiful! One day driving home to him, at an intersection a large truck passed across with the other light. The driver looked directly at me, smiled & waved as he drove through the light, by & past me & I smiled & waved back, so full of living & loving & sharing I could have burst. And now I drive home, alone, dry, hopeless, sad & without plan or place. I hate it and I cry. I cry "Oh, Ron" - I have not been happy since.)

May 20, 1972 - Just Such Driving

This gentle man, pleased for company, told how he'd been raised & lived most of his life here - within 7 miles - except for 15 yrs. in Ariz. & Calif.

I think about why I like to drive so - I love that starting out on a long trip - sort of an open-ended striking out. I believe I'm saved by there being a goal, a place I know I must go. Otherwise uncertainty would mar the going but here I had all those wonderful miles of road to travel with Doug for good company - hours & hours of open space & time - through quiet country mostly - lovely weather & the hours changing as the world turned and we could see and breathe & smell the country at early, misty morning through heat & buzz of noon to shadow & peace of late afternoon and cool promise of evening in strange places where I am me and here in such times I being me is enough. Doug had always been such a joy - a perfect companion - with no need to talk & yet at such times we have had marvelous, deep conversations - our best of all our times. I loved that day so coming back - the beauty, the tenderness of the air, the frangrances, the endlessness of the space & quiet, I felt heaven could be for me an eternity of just such driving - I could have gone on & on. Doug understood & agreed. After 8 hours of driving with stops, I am not weary of driving nor he weary of riding. (We were both sorry to near home.)

May 16, 1972 - Putt-Putt'ed

We put-putt'ed our way home from St. Louis today - or least from Iowa City where Doug and I spent last night. The trip down & the trip home, even with our valve trouble, were precious & full of wonder while the time with Mother was terrible. I was a nervous wreck, biting my lip, chewing the lipstick from my lower lip, my stomach and lower intestinal tract were constantly tense and tight, my head was every minute in danger of exploding, it felt so full & actually extended & larger than life. But the drive home, oh, the drive home was the absolute opposite - was peace & beauty and full of marvels! Being able to see like that for miles in every direction is like letting my spirit out of a box.

There is a roadside park north of Vinton, Ia., we stopped these last years & purposefully stopped there again this year. The gravel parking area is backed by a biffy, on the left is a small grassy cemetery & on the right is, was today, a small park of lush, long, thick grass & dandelions, a small flowering tree, a sheltered picnic table and the stony remains of an old church's foundations. We spoke to the flannel-shirted overhall'd, straw-hatted, grey-haired Iowan there & asked him if he were the same fellow who was cutting the grass there last year this time. He was not - he was helping the regular fellow & he showed us the special mower they use to allow them to cut up next to the stones, with some satisfaction, and the newly dry rectangle where at 1:00 pm another soul would be laid to rest.

April 28, 1972 - An Experiment In Toleration

I came home alone from shopping, eating & seeing the movie alone - an experiment in toleration of loneliness - and I was shattered, sobbing, gasping for breath, wishing the rain would pelt down & soak me into the earth, sick at entering the empty house alone feeling so heavy & full of pain & now I could not imagine bearing the pain longer when I saw a movement, a tiny movement on the ground. I bent closer & saw an earthworm, a night crawler, move faster than my eye could follow into his burrow so that all I could surely see was his pink, shiny, pointed end protruding about a quarter of an inch from his home hole in the dark, moist ground. And there were others lying about, not yet frightened enough to hide. And I smiled at the simple sign of life & it seemed enough to alleviate my burden a perceptible amount.

April 22, 1972 - At The Arboretum

Last Sunday I found the first peace [I] have known.

April 19, 1972 - 2 Weeks & 5 Days

I have not seen or heard from R. for 2 weeks & 5 days. It has been a hell, a particularly devastating hell & yet here I am wondering "where, oh, where are you tonight, my sweet boy?" I cannot hate him. I met J. tonight in Baldwin for a sandwich & 2 beers - a good evening & he means everything to me & yet on the way home I thot of R. & what it was about him that enthralled me & 3 words came to me - he was striking, he was deep & he was tortured. He [indecipherable] himself to me forever & his going has left a scar I will bear forever as a leech or a sucker might leave a permanent mark as it forcibly pulled away. I love him still - as a dear & pitiable & sad & endearing example of our doomed species.

March 17, 1972 - The Great Gap

I have returned from seeing Mary, Queen of Scots alone & I am listening to my 5 new records of Beethoven concertos & listening to the kettle whistle that means water is ready for my tea. I am incapacitated by the great gap between life and love and between my life and the life of mankind - I can hardly see where one fits with the other. I love but I am not loved. I need & want yet have not. My R. binds me as tho in a straightjacket and yet he is not here. I want to call A. but do I want to call him. It would be a lie loving R. as I do. I have the right to call A. but know I would be violent if R. saw or called another. Does he? How do I really know? How do we really know anything? I want R. here but do I want R. here?

March 12, 1972 - I Am

I am like the coin of an unknown realm.

Kaila, I try to see you as what you are. What are you? A creature so different from myself. Are you? You look me in the eye as tho you understand my unhappiness & confusion. When I cry you come to me as tho to comfort your love. You cuddle. You play. Are you so different? You are beauutiful. Your coloring is gorgeous - the shading in your hair from white to cinnamon through silver and champagne is truly beautiful. The power and strength in your legs and haunches cries out.

Later clarifying note written by Alice: (-our Alaskan Malamute pup - ran away at 6 months)

March 9, 1972 - Looking

Looking out the window & crying at the beauty of silver sunlight, bouncing off zinc window well below blue dappled day & tiny shadows moving on window frame from dry twisted tendrils of summer's vines ---

February 12, 1972 - I Love

I love and that is the only thing that matters - that there is somewhere, someone, whom I love - he does not love me but that does not matter. What matters is that there is existing in this world, somewhere, near or in Rochester, Mn, someone = in this case a dark good-looking, slim young man - whom I love with all my being - my whole self. And that somehow in some way is the answer = I love & so I am whole. I am complete, compleat as they used to say.

Oh, Ruth, somehow you came to me & I cried to know the space you left is already filled. There is no way the space you left in my heart can be filled but in the world as it functions, shallow & immediate, there is no way it can be held open. Jane has filled it & so be it. But I love you still - you are golden & open & light & full of love & color & bright & promise & I love you, too - still & always ----

Hank had remarried ---

February 2, 1972 - Dedications In The Looks

In the music & the beer & the love & friendships that abounds & surrounds me, there the dedications in the looks of Ruth to me & me to Ruth & the old songs that meant so much to John & me (and the world is so full of feeling that) there is no end that I can see, for this is all there is, & I want no more.

January 24, 1972 - Eyes & Years

I see you through my eyes & I see myself thru my years & my life - and I forget that you see me through your eyes & yourself thru your years, your life. And oh, the difference there is in view & angle & color &

the little things, oh, God, the little things -

January 24, 1972 - The Frigid World Out There

Tonight I woke from my nap on the couch heavy with boredom loneliness and I took the pup outside for her last try before bed. I was refreshed revitalized by the frigid world out there. The sky is washed & absolutely clean - enamelled black & bright with distant lights - the wind whirled madly about in insane patterns sculpting the 5" of new fallen snow into lovely shapes & patterns, my old half elm creaked & groaned in winter's hand - it was a world to be avoided and yet not to be missed.

January 23, 1972 - To R.

To R. --

Lying here together in the diffused Sunday morning sunlight on my bed of new striped sheets, you softly sleeping, fitting together like two spoons ... is the sweetest and the nicest condition I could ever want to find myself in.

Edited

January 2, 1972 - Awareness Of Him

An awareness of him comes to me at strange times - as a flash across my consciousness - for no apparent reason from no apparent cause. There he is, an essence of him, changing me w/feeling.

The terrible pull of the telephone gives going home an urgency I would sooner not feel but cannot help. I hate the hold the telephone has on me. Through it comes all my joy - I am at its mercy.

Only with him do I feel complete - that is the attraction of it. With him, next to him, in his company I am complete and that is such a necessary & desirable feeling that I am drawn to him & every evidence of him as vitally as to water.

The other morning I left my bed of love to walk the pup and found the full fat moon caught behind a silken wet of early morning clouds. It was lovely and I was lovely & in love.

December 31, 1971 - R.

What is R. to me? I hardly know. He is young dark & interesting-looking - he seems affectionate & constant. I do not know what I am to him. I can not know if what he says stems from his need to say or my need to hear. I guess I am conscious of our age difference & I feel uneasy & unsure & pregnant with some doubts. But I do need & I do want & he is good to me & so we will have tonight & many more such as is my hope.

December 31, 1971 - Cont'd

The radio is playing Once Upon A time - an old, loved, lovely favorite of John's times - nights @ Murray's when Rob Trebor would play my sweet sad favorites & I made a fool of myself by trying to reach out & touch him through an occasional note.

Wed. Doug & I went to the Arboretum where we snowshoed in the clean clear faceted world of bog & cat tail & vacant space - distance all our own - our snowshoes making lovely patterned trails behind us crossing an occasional cross country shoer's trail, stooping to scoop a handful of snow to take on thirst with its cold clean melting. I so needed that peace after the earlier chaos of shopping & waiting, forever, waiting in lines & crowds for this & for that -----

December 31, 1971 - New Hope

New Year's Eve. My new hope, R. is due here for dinner and all other glories in one hour. He called to say he'd be late but he called & said to have one or two to catch up so I am having a glass of wine and already my world is vanished. It appears smooth & there is a sheen to it and although so acutely aware that tomorrow and/or Sunday my life will once again hit me full in the face, for now I can feel warm & relaxed & full of hope & good feeling.

The moon is full tonight as I am and there on the ground some 6" of new snow fresh & clean & of fine powdered crystals - seeming different somehow from what we've had before. Doug tried last night to catch the moon in his telescope & it was frustratingly evasive. Tho we both tried & tried to catch its brilliant clarity in the lens we could not but there was once when I was holding the tripod firmly I saw the bright singular replica of the moon shining in my son's eye only to be lost again & forever for that night.

December 31, 1971 - Every Day That's Mild

I'm thankful for every day that's mild - for every day that isn't bitter-cold with a fine, sharp hurting edge.

I love my yard, my lilac bush - not because of its now condition - bare & barren, stark and static - but, tho that condition has its own peace and propriety, because of its promise the incredible beauty and lushness that I can know with a rare certainty will be with me in a half a year - oh half a year - can I wait - I will wait and it will come.

Undated, 1971 - Envy

In my yard - these days - the fat, full moon - the click, clatter of the bamboo wind chimes.

A woman stunt pilot on To Tell The Truth - oh, envy - envy.

December 4, 1971 - First Thing

First thing this morning a transparent milky blue and pink sky, a wind, a bird with ruffled head feathers lighting on the wire, indentifiable as a blue jay only when the feathers settle. Later, another and making soft, wee sounds, swinging the same wire, daring me to feel and know that as long as this is, there is hope.

Christmas 1971 - What Once You Were

What once you were
Oh, be again.

Come back to me as once you were.
All I ever had was you.
You were everything to me.
Whole, as clouds are whole,
You were clearly my answer.
You were everything I needed.
I loved you so:
Autumn woods
As winter winds and summer wiles,
As spring is sweet & undefiled you were to me.
But now it's changed & all is gone.
Time & the world of men have done their work
made their mark
You are a different you
And I am different, too.
Your weak response to life leaves me without anchor
I hang in space & float myself, no arm in sight
I tried to call - you were not there
And never are, as never were
And I see things I missed before.
I see things now

Christmas 1971 - Dear Ted

Dear Ted,
I am glad you have such a good & happy life with Betty. You probably would not have been happy with me but I do want to tell you at this point in time I still am remembering what you and I had together those many years ago. You were very sweet & good to me and you made me very happy. I am glad to have experienced such a relationship with you. It is precious to me even now. My best to you & your family.
A.N.Mc

November 28, 1971 - Replete With Loneliness

Another Sunday replete with loneliness. I am steeped in it - it pounds in on me from all sides with a quiet that hurts. Light snow is falling and my whole world is hushed beyond forebearance. The puppy naps & I cannot yet get myself to dig into the work that needs to be done. It is as tho I cannot get out from under the weight that presses in on me. It bespeaks great flaws in my character that despite the friendly activity of yesterday I should still feel so put upon & so out of it today.

But yesterday morning early when I was out with the 2 romping dogs it was good to be here, there, wherever. The early sunlight still came from behind the houses to the east, striking windows & housefronts on my side of the street, with a soft golden glow that cast its sun shadows of us in the fresh snow behind us, a srange & luminous pink-gold phenomena.

November 23, 1971 - Kaila Sits

Kaila sits & her hind legs flop to the sides - all symmetrically - her long hind feet, like a jack rabbit's, pointed at a forward angle & her haunches curved high & outward while her front legs, sturdy & strong stand straight & tall between, while she looks quizzically, head tilted to one side.

November 22, 1971 - Looking & Listening

(Anniversary of Jack Kennedy's death.)

Some thots = last night & this morning - the grass was crisp & crunchy with frost, full with random sparkles. Kaila is still spooky - any sound out of the quiet will alarm her, distract her from her duties & concentration. She swings around & stands very still, looking & listening. She weight in today - 10 weeks - at 16 pounds, a 5 lb. gain in 2 weeks. And tonight, just now, I took her out into the winter's first real snow. It is not flakes - but tiny round bits that rattle as they strike roof & tree & ground - they gleam in the light & accumulate & Kaila was so turned on she frolicked in circles - she ran & spun & gamboled & horsed around & truly seemed at home & in her own metier - as tho she knew very well this was her thing, her place. She runs so funny, her hind legs pound up & down simultaneously, her knees bent outward, passing the front legs as she gained speed, looking so much like a jack rabbit.

The night, the light thru my draperies with light off is noticeably brighter. I like it, the freshness, the clean coolness, the new covering the whole immediate world is receiving tonight.

Note: metier - a field of work or other activity in which one has special ability or training; forte.

November 7, 1971 - The Pup

Today a precious moment - at the Arboretum - about 3:30 p.m. - with Chalet & the pup - cold but clear & bright.

First, about the pup. We've had her 2 weeks plus a few days. She was born September 13, 1971 and was just short of 6 weeks old when we selected her from the remaining pups in the litter. There had been 9 pups - four were black & white and four were buff. The black & whites were gone and of the 4 buff pups we picked a female that looked smaller than the others.

She's asleep at my feet now, curled up between the legs of the gateleg table in the kitchen. I'm home today and surprised to find her quieter & sleeping more during the day than in the evenings. Perhaps that is a habit created by her being alone from 8 to 3 while Doug and I are at school & work.

At first Kaila seemed afraid of everything - she clung to me & snuggled up under my neck - was not as playful as a pup is expected to be but, of course, that changed. She weighed in at 11 lbs. at her 1st vet's visit yesterday when she received her temporary puppy distemper shot. She seems fine in all ways. Her coat is softer and more cushiony than any puppy I've known. The undercoat is there, thick & full, & the longer guard hairs, which Dr. Kolata feels may turn to some silver, are stll soft themselves.

I have been out with Kaila at all hours of the day & night & somehow have never minded. Tho often very tired and sometimes almost still asleep I've managed to notice the recent full moon in its fullness & in its waning. The nights have been so bright & starry. The clarity of the air & the whole night scene has been startling. One time we were out together very late or very early and Kaila was spooked by my shadow. It was cast long & large by the bright corner light & as I moved, it moved & Kaila jumped! She was startled again by a dry leaf the wind rustled toward her but curiosity won out and she picked up the leaf in her mouth & moved to carry it inside wih her. She is still scared by sudden noises as when car doors slam or someone shouts & she'll run up the stairs & stand by the safety of the door. Going upstairs took her while to master & only yesterday did she find the courage to come down Doug's stairs. she does not seem to mind cold, frost or snow, of which there has been very little, only a powdered sugaring.

November 6, 1971 - "Death In Venice"

I am listening to the theme music of Death In Venice (a lovely, lonely, moving movie of a novella by Thomas Mann) taken from Gustav Mahler's 5th Symphony. The whole sad mood is remembered, the melancholia floods over me and I become aware of a paradox - an anomaly (?) - how can I, a solitary, solitude-loving, aesthetic, poetic, moody, melancholy person who loves best that music, art, dance, et al that expresses the deepest feelings, the sad, the lonely - moody, melancholy stuff - highly emotionally - changed expressions - at the same time be unhappy living alone, or in need of noise be it TVor radio to keep me company when home alone. The quiet presses in on me & I am confused & miserable, indecisive, wayward and direction-less - as in a vacuum. I am nothing - a cipher, having no goal, no point, no plan.

October 18, 1971 - Weather

Weather. It is all that's good, Douglas.

We drove to the Arboretum Mon. after work at Doug's suggestion, tho it was raining. He said it was a sunny day to him. It was instead cool and blowy - the rain came lightly in fits & starts. The layers of cloud shifted, moved in the wind hurriedly. The bronze & gold leaves lay in layers on the ground, wet and warmly colored carpeting the ground we walked over - tho fallen they were still fresh & bright - rose-red, orange-gold, exhuding warmth into our eyes despite the coolness of the damp rain about our heads. Color surrounded us, rain & wind made us live & breathe & enter into the world as it was meant to be. We both swelled and opened & absorbed & agreed we would not forget such great gladness.

October 9, 1971 - As Good As Life Can Get

This is as good as life can get. There is no man in it. So ----- oh, I miss J. I miss, I miss, but here is - what more, what more is there. Here is beauty - far & distant & present beauty - fat, half moon with rounded out half, silvering air & water, filling all there is - good company, good fun -

The water swelled in ridges - rolling, rolling - as tho something were moving laterally under a textured sateen cover.

I woke up in the dark & could not sleep further so I sat at the table to watch the day come & push the night away. Across the water at the edge of the world clouds were massed in an opaque black bank looking as much like cliffs & hills and land I knew was not there. As light came on it thinned & broke & rose above a curious band of fog, it seemed, that took on the rosy orangeness of the day's dawn sky, grading from deep orange to palest blue. A single leaning birch, a simple silhouette of fine black lines against the delicate sky. Now color is almost gone from the blue, clouds have raised, fog has become only distance and still sun has not shown itself. I am tired & will try to sleep again.

September 5, 1971 - Since I Heard

I went this morning out to the Arboretum - first time in 2 months - since I heard of Ruth's death. I was the only person there for a while. I parked & walked the road, stopping in favored spots & walking across known areas, thru grass full of heavy dew until my canvas shoes were soaked.

September 3, 1971 - 12:33 AM

12:33 A.M. I realized just now that I stay up late hoping, hating to go to sleep unhappy only to wake in that same state. So I stay up and wait & hope --- for what?

August 28, 1971 - How Can I Avoid It?

OK, so I cannot count on A. I can count on no one. Probably I should not ever want to or expect to be able to count on anyone. How can I avoid it? I lay down my book and through the tears I cannot hold back, I try to begin to understand what I must do. I am home early from the antique show with Mary & I am lonely, sad & bored. Whatever is the matter with me? I have the loveliness of Tchaikovsky's music entering my ears, I am physically comfortable on my own bed with a good book & my good friend & dog, Chalet.

A. said he will call tomorrow before noon but not to count on any hard & fast plans. I'd called him to suggest an early morning walk at the Arboretum but he has first some other things he must do before he will know. So I "cannot" even go out for the early morning walk I'd wanted because my hope & compulsion will not let me leave as long as I might hear from him. So I am compelled by myself to stay home til noon & not to make any other plans. All because I would rather be with him than doing anything else.

Ginger has joined us on the bed. She lies beautiful & stretched out, eyes closed & gorgeous. Callie walks in & jumps onto the open window sill behind the draperies & all is quiet & serene except for the stereo's classic tones & the cuckoo clock calling 10:00. So how can I help myself, free myself? I think I am me, I have no major problems. What can I dredge out of myself that will give me my own anchor so that I don't need someone else to hang onto, to anchor me? Would painting do it? It might. It's the only thing in thot that even remotely grabs me.

Oh, the power & the love & the beauty in that music is so much. It should be enough. It is - almost. I would like it to be enough. I would like to make it be enough. But then the knowledge comes to me that still there is & may always be that emptiness that open blank yearning space around me, near me, next to me that nothing but a man can fill, a man committed to me, something I'm rather sure I will never find. And so there is no answer.

This loneliness is a true ache. It sits full & heavy in my chest, compounded so greatly by memories & regrets, mostly regarding J., and by great strong wishes that things could return to what and as they once were but, of course, they cannot.

August 26, 1971 - How Could You Know?

Oh, A., I wish you would call now. I'm thinking about you. I'm cherishing you. I still have a sweet feeling from last night - you were here with me 2 hours ago, saying [?] sweet things. Oh, thank you, A., for liking me, for remembering & hanging onto the thought of me through these years & coming back into my life at just the time I needed you so badly. How could you know? You didn't know but you needed, too - may neither of us disappoint the other!

August 22, 1971 - Entrance To Fall

It is the entrance to fall - here on the small porch to cabin #9. I am deafened by the sound of the water of Lake Superior, in great torment & stupendous movement. The sky has cleared now but the waves have lessened only imperceptibly. They have been cracking and smashing into magnificent cresendoes. I have not seen such waves here before. You can almost imagine the ground trembling beneath you but no, it stands solid and stoic as it has always. There, now, there's a quieting, but no, it is only a pause as the force gathers for the next attack - lovely roiling, boiling whirlpools as the water cascades back upon itself from the rugged rock shelves, the greenish brown water frothed & embroidered with frantic foam and spray. The noise overrides and supersedes all - it is unbelievably marvelous.

And a leaf occasionally drifts down to the water's surface from the birch and aspen along the shore portending the best of all, fall. Soft late afternoon sunshine casts gentle shadows across my face, casting the shadow of my hand as I write, upon the paper. Driving up this morning I had the clearest sensation of something waiting for me here. I could sense in detail my rock suspended in time anticipatory, as it were, my arrival. I could see it, as through gauze, the soft bottle-green of the water, the unsettled weathered pink granite, the golden underwater rock surfaces, the bitter green of the fine hair moss that ties under the water's edge. It was all silent and absorbent, waiting.

Instead, the water is mouse-grey-mouse-tan overlaid wherever it reflects the sky with a milky-pearly sheen of peach and pale blue. #9 is on a little cove & sitting on its rock I am out of the wind but able to enter into the spirit of the thrashing, crashing smashing waves. Watching the water like this it is difficult not to feel the water is alive. The waves break first to the left on the rock of #10 & then swing into the cove to meet resistance on all sides as the water from the previous wave returns on 3 sides to thwart the new approach. It all churns as tho possessed & doomed to endless torment. It seems it must tire so & retire to regroup its forces but never does it. If I am alive & open to what I see it is like building to an orgasm, the stimulation & exhiliration I feel as I am hypnotized by the ceaseless toll, the monumental energy displayed at my feet, is so great.

And Chalet was there yesterday in the late afternoon nearly-horizontal sunlight by the old locomotive in town & she was fringed with light in silhouette, completely featureless except where the light outlined her in a glowing incandescence.

And here again by the water very little less wild than yesterday tho the sun is warm & the sky is clear, I receive the feeling that I am watching a boisterous party, a mob, a mass gamboling in endless railling and I feel almost an impatience, a wish they would only stop their raucousness and an envy of the energy expressed, of which I have so little.

August 18, 1971 - Love ... Along Appropriate Lines

I have given my oldest journal to Dr. R to read. I mentioned that he was in it several times & he said "I should hope so. After all we've been through together - " or something like that. And since, I have felt bad somehow &, wondering why, I have thot this: perhaps he is human enough to think I might have meant he was in it in quite another way, being more a part of the series of fantasy-loves I told him it had become a record of, being an account of the last 6-7 years of searching, finding, learning, hurting. And I thot such a lack, if lack there was, was nothing but a tribute to his fairness as a man and as a doctor. He has never called me anything but "Mrs. McCoy", knowing, I believe, that familiarity can only encourage inappropriate feelings and attitudes. And yet I love him and he knows I love him - but he has taught me and allowed me to grow this love only along appropriate lines and thus he has given me a gift I have never known before or since or elsewhere - the finest gift one can be given - a true and valuable love for an invaluable male friend, rarer than lovers by far. I love him.

There was a young girl from Norway
Who hung by her toes in the doorway
She said to her beau,
"Look at me, Joe,
I think I've discovered one more way"

I yearn for the old and the peace of the old - after seeing The Last Run with George C. Scott (excellent!) and its back-ground of Portugal, Spain & Southern France and hillsides of quiet white red-roofed houses - old towns full of peace and slow, calm lives, raced past by today's tourists- and it made me want to be there, to withdraw from the race, the need, the compulsion - to return to what was - to withdraw to time to be & to think & to live life and not calendars.

Oh, Dr. R., you are too fair, too fine, for me. I would not dare to want you. I see you as what it is possible to be, what I will never be or touch. What have I got to compensate? I know what I have got and if I had to choose, I don't believe I would choose otherwise. I have got a sense, a view, a feeling for which there is no price, no value in our terms. Ruth knew it, she understood, she saw what is hard to see. Dr. R. sees, I think - he knows and I love him for it.

A. didn't call tonight. I thot he would. I really did. I don't care. No, that's not right, I do care. I care very much. It's just that it does me no good to care. So I go on. Relieved in a way - it frees me. I let go and it's a relief because it no longer pulls on me but I miss the pulling. Because pulling means caring but caring does me no good. So --------- I care not. (I do care.) I want not (I do want.) So what & why ------------

July 9, 1971 - Purity of Purpose

I stand here now - an individual human being - reaching first one way & then the other - first towards sobriety & purity, not purity of virtue but purity of purpose.

That gorgeous thing that is Lake Superior.

Note: so·bri·e·ty n.
1. Gravity in bearing, manner, or treatment.

June 21, 1971 - Leaving Me In Steps

Doug left me today. He is leaving me in steps. The first was Memorial Day 1970 (read that date in this journal) and the second leap was today. He flew to Florida to visit his father's mother. His leaving, the flight which took him away, the whole experience in a pure & beautiful emotion, a lovely potpourri of feelings that I shall try to describe. He was excited about going which made me glad. I thot he might hold back but he is growing up so fine & well that what hurts also makes me happy. (I cried happy/sad tears, I was full of emotion).

I went on the plane with him, not to coddle but to check with the stewardess & was glad I had, then I walked away from him for he did not need me or even want me & I was glad for the growing up & sad for the losing. I stood inside that window watching his window, seeing my reflections and just once a flick of something, perhaps a kind of waving.

Then the huge plane taxied out and around out of my vision. I walked away & out of the building for lack of knowing where the plane was. I saw then an Eastern jet taxing east on the far runway to position itself into the wind. I raced, I ran to the car, paid my parking fee, drove out & around onto #494 & pulled speedily off onto Post Rd. where I circled around off the road among the other watchers & stopped just as Doug's plane was receiving power & racing into the wind & as it was over me I was, too, and I watched it hungrily as it rose & banked & turned to the south, diminishing & disappearing behind a hill. I raced again back onto #494 to see it again headed south. I never let go of it until it was only a spot & then until it was not even that. (I watched him disappear through a pinhole in the sky.)

And, oh, what a pull, what a wrench of the heart to see the only thing you really love disappear into nothingness - to know where he is & what is taking place but to feel him going beyond your reach - to see him & others & thousands of pounds of matter vanish as tho only you knew they had once existed & where they had gone. I wondered why I could not help crying as I drove - not just tears welling up but deeply felt & unshakable tears. I knew it was an assortment of colorful tears - his leaving me so finely, pride in & for him; the beauty of the picture of plane rising into the beloved sky, flying in & of itself, the power, the soaring; the romance of leaving of going, of growing, broadening; happiness for Doug's having such a great experience, sadness I was not having such a great experience; loneliness, the missing of him, the pain of the memory of other arrivals, other departures; my own flying experience [undecipherable] world, the whole limitless sky all around out of my eyes in a rainbow of humanness. I will never forget the joy - the purity & truth of it all.

June 7, 1971 - What Was Today?

What was today? A fresh, cool, wet day - with trees lush that not long ago were sparce and bare, cock-pheasants sounded from the wood & I knew, I know, I feel & hear & see differently from other men = the world, a separate entity reaches out & touches me and I feel, I see, I smell, I sense, I rejoice that I live, oh, hopefully, at least a moment each day - a whole, fresh, hopeful, worshipful moment each day - under the sky and its sun or its moon or its rain or its wind.

June 6, 1971 - Rhododendrons

Met Norma at the Arboretum at 7:30 in the morning - a lovely time in a lovely place. The rhododendrons were color & blossom rampant, reminding me ever so easily of Pgh [Pittsburgh] & my years there. Were they happy? I don't really even truly know.

June 5, 1971 - Weeds

After seeing Wuthering Heights with Jean T. I stayed outside & pulled weeds from damp earth in the half-dark under a three-quarter moon until my anciest enemy, the mosquito, came out and drove me in.

June 3, 1971 - Toad

The high point of my day was toad - 2" high. He looked in our window from the window well (at work - ACS - on Florida Ave.) allowing me to grasp him, hold him, speak to him, look over him - shades of brown, cool & dry with golden irridescent eyes. He moved within my palm until I released him in the high grass of the field and felt in my hand still the feel of life, of good & precious & simple life, so true so rare & as overpowering. He was what it's all about --

May 29, 1971 - I Am Back

I am back, this Memorial Day weekend of 1971. Doug is with me this year and this year it is a fine day. Blue sky paled by stripes of sheer clouds, sun shining hugely white, light diffused by the cloud veil. There is a wind from the SE pushing the mottled green water ahead of it until each ridge collapses upon itself in a following white splash. Doug is enlarging a miniature bay in a rock pool nearby so his Hong Kong speedboat can find a safe harbor from the wind - wind that blows his nylon windbreaker flat to his body contours and swings his hair around to suit itself. Gulls bank & swoop overhead.

There are prettier places I could be in but being in this place makes it the prettiest place & the best - lovely water, light - air world - pale blue, green natural world a match for anything.

May 8, 1971 - Tree-Child

I have worked hard at sanding my garage - my right arm is weak with the exertion of it. I now sit in my own yard in fair, fly May weather. I love my yard. The late sun pours over me through the small leafy elm seed dusters - the bamboo wind chimes rattle orientally & musically - the tire swing turns slowly - the lilac bush is huge & heavy with its tight grape-colored bud-spires soon to be so lovely - good to drown one's head into.

But before me is the best - my own son's own maple tree - Censpah - of the magic, mysterious, meaningful (to him) Indian name. It possesses 8 stems, one larger than the rest, one smaller than the rest & 6 of even and average thickness. It is starred along each stem with ruddy young leaves - rusty red where the sunlight rests on them - pink & pale fresh green where the sunlight shines through them. Why is it so beautiful to me? It is like a gem, a shrine. It is as tho of Doug's own creating. He found the seed, already sprouting perhaps on his way home from school one day, years ago, planted it in our flower bed where it grew until about a foot high. Then we moved it to a better bed where it flourished further for another year or 2, until we felt it should be moved away from the house to its final resting place, tho we hesitated to just where & when.

I came home from work one day last fall to find Doug had dug it up & was debating where to plant it. All the dirt had fallen away from the roots & I despaired for its well-being but we had to & dug a hole, placed it therein, filled around it and hoped for the best. As winter approached it took on a very sad appearance. Its few leaves had dropped in a way that seemed more dead than the fall season could account for. I truly thot it was lost to us but yet here now this new year, this blessed time of all new years it came back to us as tho it always knew it would, as naturally as eternity would dictate and I sit before it now encouraged & refreshed by its very presence, one of our most, truly most, valuable possessions, precious beyond words or value, our own tree-child, a beauty four feet tall.

April 25, 1971 - There Again With My Son

2 weeks ago on Easter Sunday morning I communed with my god nature at the University of Mn Arboretum and today I was there again with my son, at last.

March 28, 1971 - Pull it Out Of Your Past

Pull it out of your past! Pick it out of the recesses of your memory!

Day follows day & nights grow cold
And all the while this curious cat
sits crouching on his Chinese mat
With eyes of satin, rimmed with gold
I sent my soul into the invisible
Some [undecipherable] of that after-life to spell
And by & by my soul returned to me & said
I, myself, am heaven & hell

From Days of Hurd Hatfield, Picture of Doris Grey, prelude by Chopin & Omar Khayaam

(Remembered after many years.)

Note: Though Hatfield's first film was Dragon Seed (1944), in which he and his co-stars (Katharine Hepburn, Akim Tamiroff, Aline McMahon, Turhan Bey) portrayed Chinese peasants, it was his second film, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), that made him a star.

March 20, 1971 - The Gap

I formulated the idea the other day that my happiness or unhappiness rests in direct proportion to the gap between what, for whatever stable or unstable reason, I expect from the someone or something at hand and what seems forthcoming from that someone or something, be it life, friend or lover.

March 7, 1971 - Tired From The Effort

I had the thot, lying here waiting for strength to return after my almost-week in bed, that I was tired from the effort of hanging onto my mind which, it seemed, if I relaxed my concentration, would fly away, would flee, leaving me mindless.

I also thot, on this my 6th anniversary of J.'s beginning and the 1st of his ending, how sad that it is so easy for us to hurt each other by not even trying but often by just being.

My misshapen vanilla aroma'd candle winks & flirts - the flame appearing & reappearing over the bent & molded edge, its light glowing unevenly & palest orange through the fat wax cylinder it has melted itself down into, flickering against & warming the bare bottom of my terra cotta child who sits serenly in her nakedness, staring into space as do I so much of the time these days.

My two cats have endeared themselves to me so much this week of my illness & discontent. Hardly ever do I lie down or sit in a semi-reclining position but one or the other of them meanders and slithers her way onto my chest & abdomen there to position herself carefully & gently in some manner, to warm my heart & person & to rise & fall easily with each breath of mine, the beauty & grace of each of them equalling & indeed surpassing that of any work of man.

February 12, 1971 - What I Used To Feel

I felt, I had a touch, a taste, a hint, a sniff of what I used to feel with J., for J., because of J. It just came to me, swept over me. I wish I could have some of that now. God, I do. But that was another time, another me & J. was another person, too.

I think I have lived a whole life in these 7 years alone, through all the growing stages, vastly telescoped but all there, grasping early learning, experimenting, fond, fanciful adolescence, a tad of maturity and now sloping, sliding middle age, bittersweet to sour, cynical, part sentimental, nostalgic - still wanting, needing but knowing now it does no good to want or need - what comes, comes, what comes not comes not.

February 8, 1971 - Weekend w/G

Notes -

that rich, heady weekend w/G.

January 31, 1971 - Parallel Paths

We go down parallel paths
Never seeing
Never meeting
To the end without finding
Needing, wanting, but an answer is there.

January 22, 1971 - Tabatinga

"Tabatinga"
from old movie = Doug Fairbanks, Jr.
John Howard (Shangri-la)?
Joan Bennett

Note: It starred Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as an explorer leading a team of archeologists, etc. into the Amazon basin near Tabatinga to look for Inca gold.

January 19, 1971 - A Miracle In Myself

I am really, after all, a miracle in myself. Is that no so? A microcosm, as [indecipherable] as the miracle of life. For that reason life, if no other, I [indecipherable] to be routine with.

January 12, 1971 - Give Me Strength

I said "Give me strength" & then I knew - there is no way to give me strength. I must find it, gather it, from within myself. That is the only source, the only place, the only way. "Alice" I said & it sounded strange to hear my name spoken by myself - it always sounds strange and somehow fine of me to hear my name spoken aloud. To be called by my name - disproportionately fine - alas, I'm sure - because I have so poor an image of myself - to hear my name aloud assures me of my existence & reassures me that I am indeed here, a being to be recognized. Give me strength, Alice - find me strength, Alice - gather strength, Alice - to say "no" - to Alice to find & seek & be what Alice indeed is & wants & wishes to be. I will.

I am looking for the unfindable.

December 26, 1970 - 4:25 Christmas

This is it - my time of day - 4:25 - Christmas weekend - 1970. The robin's egg blue sky is blended by clouds of peach and gold, pushed swiftly southeast by an edge-less winter wind. Bouquets of fine black lines strengthened by heavier black boughs wave and bounce erratically in the late day light. J. is due soon and so sunset this day portends not loneliness to me but the wistful and nostalgic emotion my sentimental self bursts with when I feel contented.

My son is my joy especially now. We had the happiest Christmas together alone I could imagine. He was everything he should have been Christmas Eve and morning. He is so fine and feeling a boy.

December 4, 1970 - Falseness of the Gospels

Also the saying "to proclaim once more the falseness of the gospels under the cover of which greed & [undeciperable] filled, with more and yet more pain, the already unbearable agony of human life."

November 21, 1970 - John Dos Passos

Reading John Dos Passos' Three Soldiers - why? I guess I'm trying to hang onto things solid - permanent things that have proved themselves. He says "growing up is the process of pinching off the buds of tomorrow."

November 7, 1970 - Variety of Life

" -- simultaneously enchanted & repelled by the exhaustible variety of life."
The Great Gatsby

Octobe 30, 1970 - Indescribable Joy, My Son

I must write, & someday I will write at great length, of the indescribable joy my son gives to me by being. It is deep and all pervading - it is pleasure compounded - it is soul-satisfying and heart-filling. I love him so much. He is and has been an experience I would exchange for nothing. He, literally, not only takes my heart, he is my heart.

October 16, 1970 - If You Do Not Love

If you do not love, you are not alive. If you are not involved in a relationship of some sort with another human being, in my case, a man, you are not of this world. I am not alive now. I am man-less and were it not for my son I would be dead in spirit. I do not exaggerate. What I say is true.