This is November 23rd, 1952

This is November 23rd, 1952. I felt a driving desire to go once again to Grey Summit - to drive through the park & turn left on the road that led up to the river - to walk along the river upon the stones as I had done with Jack another November day several years ago. It was not Jack I remembered with longing but the things we did together. The weather was the same as that other day - cold but not a penetrating cold - the kind of cold that makes you warm after walking climbing and feeling the wonder of the day.

Bob did not feel like walking so we drove out Ladue Road with the windows open, the wind making our cheeks ruddy and tingling. We went again to the spot on Babler Road where we had been before. I got out & walked up the bank of the road & stood once again on the edge of the familiar field. I had seen this field in its many seasons, with new tender translucent green shoots piercing the brown blanket of earth - with tasseled corn tall in rows (I have some of that tassel pressed in a book somewhere - it was nice like pale yellow silk, now it has become brown & curled but it still possesses some of that sweet earth corn smell) and as it was now - the earth turned over into gentle ripples - each ridge alternativg with rows of grass whose green stood out in its greeness. I took off my shoes and stood on the cold soft ground. I walked across the field, the clods of dirt breaking under my weight but when I stood still, the ridged dirt pressed hard up into my feet. I can still feel that welcomed pressure. Quiet was everywhere disturbed by an occasional blare of a duck call and by periodic gun shots. The sky was almost totally blanketed bya scaley cloud - like a textured shade pulled across almost to the edge where the sky was an intense autumn blue.

I became upset with myself because all I write has to do with me alone - it's all so personal. I so want to write & yet who wants to read about me, what I feel & think --

As I stood in that field I felt so comfortable within myself so much at home - I thought to myself that this was my season the one I truly loved the most. The ground in the distance was rusty with fallen leaves and the trees were rusty black - the fall air was gentle on my bare legs & I did seem at one with this part of the world - but I had to go back to things as they really were - Bob said we could drive more if I wanted to but I had the feeling that we had to go home sometime - I would feel no more like it later than I did then - it was that old uncertain sensation of not knowing what was or when or how ..........