Interior Design 84

Original art by Alice Nelson McCoy
Prepared for her Interior Design class at Washington University, St. Louis, MO
Circa 1950

Alice

3-21-49 Alice Nelson - Like a Flower

like a flower that you've seen - implanted in dry parched earth - by looking at it you can almost see it yearning, longing, devising, stretching, & straining for moisture - for the drops of the warm spring rain or for the simplest gentle morning dew - you can see it begging for the moisture that it knows it must have, that it should have, that it was meant to have - just so do I need & yearn for love - the warmth of a hand-clasp - the heaviness, softness of a kiss - the strength which comes from desiring fulfilling desire -----

the invulnerability which comes from being wanted & needed -----

my love has been like a flower whose desire to live - to continue to bloom under a warm sunlight & gentle moonlight - to absorb endlessly the life-giving caressing rain - to share its substance with the honeybee so as to be part in substance of each other blossom on God's earth - whose desire for these things has not allowed it to surrender - kept it from surrendering to the merciless heat of midsummer's day, to the cruel, crushing, beat of torrential rains, to the creeping bite of sudden frost - whose desire has given it the strength to spring back full of hope & faith for more sunrays, more moisture, more of the same -----

over & over this happens - each time the flower seemingly asks for more - refusing to give up to the forces until one day .......... the first signs appear - a little less, fervent desire for the sun's heat - caring not quite so much if its petals sparkle or not - & so at last it wills complete surrender only when it feels the tug on its root-strings, the tapping of its stem-stream of life-giving materials, indicating the birth of a new bud bursting forth, eager for the wonder of a new search for life, for love - beginning the cycle of desiring & fulfilling all over again.

3-21-49 Alice Nelson - Random

scuddling purple clouds - heavy & ponderous - poisonous looking.

the rain water trickled along the center of the alley - the rough bricks beneath made the water cris-cross as it ambled slowly - like a woven band - carefree casually rolling around obstacles - small piles of wet decaying leaves - tattered scraps of cloth, black & spotted with dirt & time.

soaked milk pods - swollen with rain - spongy but empty - felt each in among the wet, tangled vines - found one yet bursting with & bearing its tightly packed seedlings (?) - put it in pocket to save till a warm sunlit dry day when the light, winged fluffs would be free to drift & float on invisible breezes -----

black, coarse, soaked, rough, loose bark of the common sycamores - all the stronger more solid & more determined for their wetness - one among them spotted with colors like purposefully camoflaged - like a lovely water color - each muted, earth tone, melting into the next - all golds, browns, ambers, russets - dappled -----

the dittering & rattling of several abandoned leaves still clinging (desperately) (indifferently) to their ------- suited high up above the rain gutters ----- my mood - alone & forgotten by the wind & earth & all -----

"rain puddle-mirror"
glistening streets
the banded sky

the naked, sweet briar bushes - each black soaked twig & branchlet strung with rain drops - gracefully posed - each impatient for a lover breeze to give it gentle encouragement to take independent flight - in brief ecstasy before joining its infinite kin deep in the spongy - saturated - rejuvenated earth ----- against the pearl grey twilight clouds, each black twig was like a fine strand of jet set with priceless diamonds & emeralds -----
emeralds = embryonic leaves - budding so boisterously - so defenseless yet so unafraid & so infinitely sweet & tender ----- each a translucent glowing young green - exhuding & inspiring eternal hope & harmony -----

have you ever looked deeply & long into a rain puddle-mirroring a stout sycamore - making it appear ever so much more powerful & ----- wind-swayed limbs create a dizzying effect - appears to be devil-like - reaching downward - growing away from heaven - each black branch like a horny hand clawing & grasping -----

March 14, 1949 Alice Nelson - Etc.

----- My love has thrived because it was planted, it took root, & it blossomed under his care, his warmth & his love - it had become sturdy and strong when neglect & disinterest became its fate - too sturdy & too strong to allow itself to be killed by this frost, this change of manner - like a zinnia or a hardy weed it continues to grow - perhaps not to grow, but to simply exist - waiting, yearning, hungry for the return of spring like some dormant or hibernating thing having a great will to live on, in spite of present discomfort - however, if this is to be an eternal winter, my love will forever preserve its present state until perhaps another spring, another kiss shall reawaken it to its hidden lustre & lushness -----

Etc.

----- the one great defect in the mechanism of man is his absolute inability to control the strength and determine the destination of his heart waves -----

Etc.

----- I hate myself for continuing to love so wholeheartedly someone who cares so very little for me - where's my pride - where's my ambition -----

Etc.

May 6, 1946 Free Writing

Nelson, Alice

As I watched, the irregular puffs of frothy vapor which were scattered about the graying sky became faintly tinged with gold. The last finger-like rays of the sun groped about, peeking through pale, translucent leaves. Seedpods from budding maples spun and swirled to earth with a rustle. Carefree sparrows, waving and soaring far above the slender poplars, were but specks silhouetted against the vast blue sky. A shiver rippled along my body; the shadowed earth felt chilled and damp beneath my bare feet; the sun had passed below the line of trees, leaving me in the silence and solitude of dusk.

(I wrote this last night after taking a walk around the block.)

7-10-1956 Lighthouse

6-28-56 Moving Day and 7-5-56 Rabbit Dance

We are moving today from Pgh. to Cleveland by way of our vacation (St. Louis, Barrington & camping in Canada). I'm waiting for the van now - sitting on the back step in the morning sunshine - it's a grand day & gives a perfect last look at this place we've called home for 2 years. The sky is such an intense cloudless blue the oak & chestnut trees are such a rich, deep green, almost black against the brilliant blue - they are in their summer fullness - the wind rustles them & rounds the sides against which it blows - the multitude of cherries on the two trees by the old black house are a beautifully vivid spark.

The sun is bright against my lids & very warm against my skin. I've been sitting here enjoying the things late sleepers miss - such a magnitude of life can be witnessed on the small square of pavement at my feet - in this small space, in this short span of time I've seen several kinds & sizes of flies, ants, a grey-armored doodle bug, a tiny (young?) cricket, bronze wigglers, and a minute red spider, round with 3 or 4 legs on either side, scurrying like the wind, smaller than the head of a pin.

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Last night I saw a thing that put a sheen on everything for me. I was putting up the blind before getting late into bed & I saw this wonderful spectacle taking place on the street, driveway and lawn of a house down the hill. (now 7-5-56). Two rabbits of good full-grown size were performing - whether in courtship or just play, I don't know - but they would face each other about a foot or two apart, hop lightly in small arcs then one would make a playful lunge, and the other would hop straight up all of 2 feet or more & land on the same spot & they would circle some more. I'm afraid I failed to notice whether or not it was the same rabbit that jumped each time but this went on for about 10 minutes, then one became more interested in nibbling on the grass the other followed suit - this they did, moving gradually out of my sight & off to bed I went.

June 21, 1956 - Horses

the first day of summer
the longest day of the year

We drove out Route 19 after dinner to a farm near Hickory - were invited there through a girl in Bob's office - where a friend of hers raises horses. At first was disappointing - all we could see were run-down bldgs - a nice enough barn and a delapidated shed but it became much much more than that -- first of all, we took turns riding a 4-year old mare named Clover - palomino and gentle - around a rect. pen - it felt good to be on horseback again - I felt as though I belonged there & hoped I looked it - she would walk along one end & one side but then turning toward the other end & side & back to the gate she broke into a nice trot & into a canter - oh, it felt so good & so free.

While I rode her Betty came close to play & Clover balked & reared & swerved but I held my seat & her & loved it!

I am completely without inhibitions when I am riding - feel & seem like another person - I revel in it, I cannot help from grinning broadly & all but laughing out loud - oh, blessed freedom of it - she became hot & tired & Jack walked her some & then tried to round the group of mares & 2 colts over closer to us - there were seven mares, sorrel, roan, palomino, buckskin & dapple and a pale, pale colt and a more dappled one.

Oh, is there any more beautiful sight than that of a horse running free - any age - & the sight of those colts running close beside their mothers was a joyous thing to behold - something I had never seen real so close before. I climbed the fence & stood there on a rung of it, seeing the horses in the foreground & hill upon hill against the darkening, still color-stained sky, with their broad round green surfaces broken by darker trees & more horses & cattle in the distance & I said aloud, I think it was aloud, that here was the essence of it all - the essence of all my hopes, plans, dreams - all this was me - I felt at one with it, part of it, close to God - I knew at that moment that God heard my prayer - somewhere, sometime I would be justly at one, at home, in such a place - the sky at 9:15 was still pale hazy - the whole scene was moist & lush & vaguely misty, everything softly outlined - later as we were leaving I leaned against a new fence, still smelling strongly of new wood, & looked up at a row of cottonwoods rustling with the gentle rush of air with the veiled full moon beyond & I felt that if I would only live in such a place day in & day out, night & day, season after season, in rain & sun, cold & heat, I would - what was the right word? - mature, ripen, develop, become a person, an individual, my writing might there flourish & take form - I would be an adult part of this world - if only it will not come too late.

And driving home I felt strangely as I've never felt before - the whole night was so beautiful - I said at first, was a night of nights, but it was not - just another beautiful night of an infinite number of beautiful nights at any time of year, in any part of the world & I wondered if, since the beauty I saw & felt was in me, could a night in France or Sweden or Africa be any more beautiful? I suppose everything combined to make me feel as I did - the horses by sight & by feel, the countryside, the full moon, open & clear by now, the softness of the air & Swan Lake on the radio - but I never remember having felt so rich & so full before - I wanted to smile, cry, yawn, sing, fling my arms out all at once - I felt so full & so satiated as to have an actual queasy feeling in my stomach - I felt as though anything more would make me literally burst - I felt that if I should die feeling like that, I could have asked no more of life & this earth.

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J. said when a horse is kept in pasture, he does not seem to sweat when ridden, even hard.

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& too, when a palomino is kept out thru the winter their cost bleaches out to be as pale as his tail & mane, but will darken to its natural reddish tan when inside for any time.

6-12-56 Sugar and Vinegar

Sunday we revisited the Hartman's farm and I was swept by nostalgia for strange things - I remembered fondly last year's two week stay there - a time of cool, foggy mornings, clear, ringing nights - I could remember the taste and smell and feel of many things - it was a time of tomato and onion slices in sugar and vinegar, the faint inside smell of age and dampness and the strong outside smell of sun-warmed pines - days of hot, wearing sun & persistent, buzzing insects and nights of endless, open wonder.

The layout of the house is friendly and comfortable - just like my farm house should be. In a way it was like being in a home I had always known. I could almost hear the angry squaks of the geese as I walked through the barnyard though they are no longer there.

The view from the hilltop was as grand as I'd rememered it, as inspiring & as wonder-ful. And again I felt that a place just such as this would give me everything I want and need for a full & satisfying life - would be all I could ask.

6-12-56 Tomorrow is Tomorrow

The night holds it, the air holds it, the moon, stars & wind hold it, but where am I to find my share of it? I guess I never shall find it except in my writing. There can be no fulfillment of this hunger without more ill than good and so I want none. Already the pangs are lessening & I wonder now what stirred me so earlier. Nighttime is a gentle, lonely time and breeds such (I want always to be at peace with Bob.) wondering, wandering thoughts.

Tomorrow is tomorrow.

5-22-56 Rain

a nice, delicious, slow, cool, spring rain

5-5-56 May Apples

clumps of may apples - their low-lying leaves shone & sparkled in the sun

dandelions, carpet of
fruit trees in opening bloom
a spring-blue sky
many young leaves on bush & tree were tinged with a reddish newness

10-12-55 Huston Smith

I want to remember here some things Huston Smith mentioned on his Hindu (?) program of the Religions of Man TV series. He said that the Yogas compare the restlessness of the mind of man - first with a monkey in a cage - but that is not quite restless enough - they add that it is like a drunk monkey in a cage and then must go still further & give this drunk monkey in a cage a case of St. Vitus' Dance - but this conception is still short of the mark and they achieve the desired comparison only when they say the mind of man is as restless as a drunk monkey in a cage with St. Vitus' Dance who has just been stung by a hornet! And he said, they strive to learn and do learn through their various body positions, to concentrate completely and absolutely on whatever idea they wish as long as they wish. Their minds will stick to an idea as a lump of dough thrown at a certain spot will stick until, and only until, they wish to remove it. What a treasure that talent would be!

10-12-55 The Back Doorstep

I sat outside just now on the back doorstep, wanting to gain some satifsaction (that's not quite the word - someday I'll put my finger on it) from this October nighttime - but I didn't stay long - the sky was sparkling clear and the air refreshingly cool, but the street noises, the lights & houses were all too close and I had no tree under which to sit, to look upward and through whose leaves to single out stars. There were only the hillside of house lights and the steepled church lit up by a pale blue glow - all like a Reporter cover and I could see straight ahead where 51 would curve around the red sky glow signifying the pouring of the glowing slag from its train of bucket cars.

August 28, 1955 - Home From The Farm

We came home from the farm today. I knew I'd miss it but I didn't know in what ways. I have missed it already in several ways - unconscious ways. I felt out of place on the parkway coming home - somehow as though I were being returned to some place I did not want to go - some place of confinement. We are happy here at 3349, but it is confining after what we have lived the past two weeks. And tonight as I sat quilting & watching the TV I hadn't missed, I felt myself resisting the idea of going to bed. At the farm I never resisted it, but here I did. I didn't, I don't want to close the day. Why, I asked myself. It seemed somehow connected with that idea of confinement. Here all there is, is the shelter of this house - four sides & a roof above. That doesn't seem like enough. I guess I was waiting for more - for something better to close the day. Out there, there was so much more than the walls & the roof & the space inbetween - there were fields behind and before - there were chickens to feed & look after - there was space all around & infinite space above - a whole, full sky above from horizon to horizon, from hill to hill, never dull - never ending - and there were the views of those horizons and those fields - full, satisfying views, staving my hunger & thirst for life & growth & progress & beauty & freshness & nature. There were an eternal number of things to notice & to absorb - to love and joy over - the somehow pathetic leaf plucked from the apple tree behind the house - already a mottled red & yellow - warm & beautiful in its premature autumn scheme - recalling all the sweet, sad remembrances of that best of all seasons; the comical resemblance of the small chick as it bent over to scratch, to a fat boy in knickers viewed from behind; the mother hen a perfect picture of the doting mother, large in bosom and of managing nature; the gladsome variety of wild flowers, some resting close to earth and others stretching tall above the earth - a multitude of colors & shades of colors, pink, lavender, deep king's purple, golden yellow & butter yellow, creamy white and periwinkle - some feathery, delicate - others bold & confident, making a richer bouquet than could be cultivated; the endlessly varied pageantry of the sky & clouds, never failing to rest me & supply me with hope and joy and peace. All these things and many, many more will be missed. And here I want to express my gratitude to God for all such things, true expressions of His qualities.

I guess I was satisfied to close the day on the farm because I knew the things that made the farm & all the countryside important & valuable to me, would be there tomorrow, if not the same as they were today, then different, more interesting, more developed, but still in all unchanged - while here I'm not so sure about tomorrow - the things I must deal with are of lesser value, of more temporal nature & not nearly as satisfying. The farm things gave me more fulfillment during each day & when night fell & was met, it was enough & bed was welcome - but, perhaps in the city there is no fulfillment, at least for me.

Barn Drawing - Circa 1955

8-18-55 'Til Now

Today has been cloudy & I've been inside 'til now, reading, playing the piano, and cleaning. Didn't hear that strange bird last night - wish I knew what made the call. The sunset last evening was lovely - layers of pink, peach, orange & even smoky green clouds smeared across the whole of the sky - I watched while the sun sank & took its gaudy scarves with it - the color, drained from those clouds leaving them grey & drab like the colored flavoring I suck from a popsicle leaves the tasteless ice behind.

Yesterday I walked up the hill behind the barn up to the row of hawthorne (?) trees & sat & watched the panorama that was opened to my eyes - I could see hills overlapping hills & distant farms & fields all diminished by the tremendous reach of sky above - it was a joyous sky, exciting & activating - it appeared that the different layers of trembling clouds were sailing in different directions but I think just the lower strata was moving swiftly, appearing to make the upper static layer move in the opposite direction.

There was a hawk flying above the trees opposite & I watched her - she barely moved her wings during the whole time I watched her flight - she soared in a spiral - banking around & then over & up higher, around again & again, catching, I guess, and using to advantage each updraft of air - I can hardly describe the joyous freedom & complete effortlessness with which she rose higher & higher 'til I scarce could keep my eye on her - over, around & ever upward with never so much as a flutter of her wings. I envy that hawk & it reminds me of Bob's and my secret promise - to learn to fly soon.

I'm getting so to like the chickens here - I never knew any so well before. They are certainly social - almost to a bird they grub or rest together - I like to watch them look for food - they're sharp eyed & seldom miss an insect their beady eye spies - their large feet mince forward, all eyes alert for aught that moves - their head bobbing at a great rate - the layers of feathers down to the base of thin neck sliding forward with each bob - there's one now having a try for the buttons on the knees of my kneepants - I like the soft, fluffy mess of feathers about their legs & hindparts like feather boas - they come down to their knees like ruffly pantaloons - when they crowd around my hand as I sprinkle the feed in the trough I can feel they are warm & cushiony - soft & smooth - they rest from their labors & the heat of the day under the peony bushes or lilac bush, all puffed out & round - there's an old hen in the barn yard whose red comb is so large as to flap over one side of her head, comically looking like a sunbonnet or rakish cap.

8-17-55 Not a Cat's Meow

I heard the strangest sound last night. We were reading in the living room while the radio played softly & pleasantly. All at once I heard or thought I heard a sound over & beyond the music - I listened intently, trying to separate the sound & identify it - from where I sat, it sounded like it might be the small white & black cat that stayed around the barn, like the small, plaintive cry of a lonely cat but when I went on to the screened porch I heard it distinctly & it was not a cat's meow - it was a sad, mournful & eerie cry - I motioned to Bob to come & hear for himself - it could only be the call of some bird, completely foreign & fascinating to my ears - it reminded me of what I had read of the call & habits of the poor-me-one bird of Columbia, Panama and tropical America - it had the same sound of some desolate human being, crying out in sorrow & anguish - was the same type of call - a series of notes, six or so, starting high and falling with each note - it gave me the strangest sensation, not a little uncomfortable-

would that I knew someone who knew about such things & with whom I could discuss such experiences & who could teach me & tell me the things I'm so interested in knowing.

8-16-1955 Compliments of Hurricane Connie

We arrived out here Saturday night in the last fine drizzle of a day of steady rain, compliments of Hurricane Connie. We unpacked, settled ourselves, received a few last instructions and went off to bed - the air coming through the open windows was damp and chilly & getting into bed under cool sheets & a blanket smelling of a cedar chest was very pleasant - the odor reminded me of something good and warm & friendly - the nights since have been warmer & we haven't needed the blanket, but the mornings are cool and everything outdoors is heavily dewed.

It warms up well by noon & the sun is hot & direct & the insects swarming - the only flaw in the whole experience. They buzz and hum & swoosh about my head but fortunately do no more harm - no mosquitos to bite. The dogs are finding comfort in the shade of the young maple on the lawn near me. My surroundings are beautiful & all but soundless. I looked out across the valley at the opposite hill & felt awed by its beauty but on thinking just what was beautiful about it, I could say no more than trees & sunshine and shadows & what is so beautiful about only these things? Only that I love them & love makes beautiful. And there is beauty in the clean, even unbroken (save for one treetop) line of the ridge of yonder hill, in the space of a field between two woods - it is smooth & fresh green & might be the edge of the world.

This morning while I sat on the porch, reading, I heard some chickens, might have been the hens in the barn, cackle & chatter as if in alarm - it would seem that it was a warning call of some kind for I noticed the mother hen, loose in the yard with her chick, had ruffled her wings & feathers and squatted down right where she was while the tiny chick nestled close to her under the feathers with only its head exposed.

Yesterday while filling a bucket from the shallower pool in the spring house, I saw, with mild horror & surprise, two pincers rise from the settled mud at the bottom - was a crawfish I had disturbed which commenced to crawl awkwardly through the tiny spillway into the deeper portion of water.

Another curious thing, indigenous I suppose to such situations as this, is the clarity of sounds issuing from across the valley - sounds of people, animals & machinery carry with a loudness belying their distance - almost with a sound of mechanical amplification.

August 15, 1955 - Toadstool

I just found at my feet a toadstool - I don't know the difference between the edible mushroom & its inedible cousin, but I mean to learn it someday - the specimen I just examined has a feathery underside of a pale, pale pink covered by a mottled creamy white dome.

I'm sitting here at the top of the hill behind the Hartman farm - my company consists of the two dogs (our favored Betty & the H.'s elderly scottie, slow, serene and in awe of the boxer) and the sights and sounds about me - I hear the distant barking of another's dog, the far off rumble of a plane, the nearer sound of a multitude of insects, humming & buzzing & plaguing me, the steady hum of the locusts in the trees all about me, the occasional crow of a neighbor's rooster, and the panting of the dogs at my feet.

The sights I see include Queen Anne's Lace & Goldenrod in abundance, dark-centered yellow daisies, lavender clover, wild strawberry plants scattered all amongst the tangle of low growth - the grapes on the vines behind me are hard, green, silvery clusters - the sumac leaves already have brilliant tips of red & a black butterfly with spots of white & stripe of blue is balanced on a thistle bloom.

Across the valley on the opposite ridge I see farms & fields, pastures & woods, rich greens constrasting with browns of plowed fields & locust tree leaves dying early from the dryness of the summer. The heat of the day is heavy on the dogs, on me & the landscape - the sky patches between the great masses of grey & blinding white cloud, hazy with heat - - - later the sky cleared itself onlyto be blanketed with a single rolling rain cloud which dropped an insignificant portion of its contents and rolled along clearing the sky behind it.

June 30, 1955 - The Strangest Thing

The strangest thing just happened. I happened to glance up the hill at the Maerkers' now-empty house as I went down the front steps; when I saw the darkness of the windows, the raised blinds & the propped-open screen door, such an unusual feeling of genuine sadness filled me. I couldn't take my eyes from the sight of it - so strangely forlorn - this feeling surprised me because although Karl & Bob got along well enough & Gay & I enjoyed chattering together, we were not by any means close friends - I mean by that, there were no deep feelings between us singly or as a couple, but it was such a sincere sadness that I persisted in examining it and could only explain it so: Gay is about as different a personality from me as it is possible to be - she was always vivacious, happy as her name, sparkling and constantly chattering - but never in the ten months we've known each other, has her chatter been annoying. In fact, she makes it contagious & I was able, without being conscious of it, to return some of the gaiety & vivacity she expressed. And so it must simply be that I naturally associated this effervescence of her with the lights in their windows & the open welcoming door. Now it is so completely unnatural & inmproper to see these aspects no longer present when I look up the hill and I feel sad at their absence.

June 30, 1955 - Golf

I'd like to learn to play golf. I just saw a film showing a women's golf tournament - the full swing of a drive looked strange to me - I wondered why - and realized what struck me was the absolute lack of inhibition inherent in such an action - I felt that were I trying such a swing, my arms would tighten and I would be unable, or more truly, unwilling, to swing so freely - but I'd love to learn to be able to act with such confidence & freedom - if only I could learn, I'm sure I'd benefit in other ways.

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I'm speaking now to Sara Menaboni - I saw something this evening that would please you, I believe - I looked toward the cherry tree atop the hill, heavily studded with scarlet, and I noticed a cardinal helping himself to the bright, sour fruit - a larger shape of the same scarlet, brilliant against the dark green foliage.

4-10-56 Just Now

Walking up the road just now had the nice kind of feeling a yawn has. I guess it was the stretchcing of my legs as I walked up the hill with the cool breeze at my back and the warmth of the sun on my face - it was a small beginning to the awakening I spoke of - there were at last tangible green buds on the trees - I could have kissed them - at long last - I wonder if this is just another false beginning - I walked thru the bare open woods to the edge of the neighboring nursery & looked down at 51 curving up to the shopping center, at the cars, small from my standpoint, manuvering for position - it felt unspeakably good to be high, alone, among the trees looking out & down at such activity - good to be up so high - I think I must always live on a hill - not to look down on things in the common sense, but so as to be removed from them, distant from them, closer to wind, and sun & birds --

4-9-56 So Hard To Explain

It's so hard to explain & I even get embarassed when I try - I just said to Bob in a voice I couldn't make sound natural that "It was as though I needed it to exist" and he laughed in his embarrassment - thus it is, when you say something really close to yourself from deep inside you where you really are. I was referring to my need of looking at & being with mountains and all related things - such sights, sounds, smells & surroundings are very real food & drink to me - and at this point & after being house-bound, winter-bound I feel literally starved & wasting - I feel dry & parched as dormant seeds must feel waiting for warmth & moisture to ensure their continuance - I need to be, want to be, reawakened & refreshed. The pictures of the Grand Canyon whidch I have not seen & the Grand Tetons which I have seen stirred this hunger to the point of actual pangs centering in my tear ducts rather than in my stomach. It is something I really cannot explain even to myself.

2-26-56 Through Our Binoculars

We have just been looking at the moon through our binoculars. Tonight is one of a series of the most beautiful nights I can remember - there have been & will be other kinds of nights as beautiful but there can be none more so. After winds & rains & snows the upper air is infinitely clear - as though a vacuum - the moon is a full, serene sphere - the stars are distinct & tremulous - the clouds rushing and transparent. Looking through the binoculars I can see the craters along the top of the sphere, outlined by shadow - there are the dark masses (have I heard it said this is vegetation?) - and faint signs of the canals I have heard described. It looks like it might be a Japanese lantern, or a magnificent pearl, or an onion - it seems not real - I must reassure myself that I am looking at the moon - not a picture of it and not a model of it - but the moon, pure and simple - I think of setting foot on it, of the trips to the moon I hear being planned for the future, and I do not like to think of it as being within reach, as another place to visit - I want it to stay as it is now - I'd like to be a part of it, or a part of the wisp of cloud rushing over its face - I'd like to be as distant, as unruffled, as untouchable, "by the jarring testimony of mortal mind".

2-19-56 First Love

It seems to me that ("first love") that's the only feeling that opens up the world when everything is twice as big and twice as beautiful.

Undated

outside in the fullness & the wholeness & the freedom of the air

1-27-56 Feeling

----- it was a feeling all of embroidery -- of summer sun, pale & warm, of sky blue & new leaf green

1-19-1956 Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto

(Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto)
A poor first attempt, 1-19-1956

I heard the music, sweet dear to me - and I felt a change, of loss, something gone - the mind places such music once took me to have since dissolved and clouds dissolve and I could weep - for the loss - of lovely sights & scenes, of fragrant blowing flowers, colors pale and blending, of sadness & of sweetness all in one - I mourn this loss for I am poorer, drier for it and I cling more strongly to what is left - an eternal love for music, still sweet & ever precious.

1-10-56 Impression of Only One Moment

As nice as our holiday was there is the impression of only one moment that I want to record.

(Highland Park, Ill.)

After the movie on New Year's Eve we drove to a spot near the lake where there were steps leading down to the beach. We three walked down these steps to the beach in this cold last hour of 1955. The moon was full, or nearly so, and it illumined the whole lonely scene. The beach was white in the light of it and between it and the water was a strip, several yards wide, of ragged ice, crushed bits washed up, I assume, and refrozen solidly together. This icy band, shining whiter than the sand, received the small, lapping ripples of molten moonlight. There was a narrow concrete pier that reached out beyond the ice into the darkness & endlessness of the water. I walked out only so far - beyond that the moonlight seemed not to penetrate. The others seemed anxious to leave but I lingered there alone as long as I could - with my head thrown back looking at that great pearl in that black, black sky, wishing I were completely alone there & dressed more properly. It was all so vast, so cold and quiet, so very elemental and basic, just as it might have been at the very beginning. Then we had to go.

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This desire to express wells up in me so, sometimes I think I can't bear it - surely I shall not leave this earth without having found an outlet for it - I feel it full and rich inside me & the only outlet it finds is in the tears in my eyes - I don't know what to do. If I could only find a way ---

12-12-55 Upon seeing "Sleeping Beauty"

Upon seeing Sleeping Beauty performed on TV by The Sadler Wells Ballet

Seeing all this beauty rekindled for me the intense love, loyalty & admiration I have felt toward ballet ever since my introduction to it. Warm tears welled in my eyes - I could not hold them back anymore than I could repress the smile that came to my lips. I wished that I were Margot Fonteyn at that moment - that I could be one with the music, the color, the movement as she was. It seemed to me that all the color, the vibrancy, the whole of life was there, then, on my television screen. I feel that I have all the inner qualities necessary to perform as she did - but I surely lack the outer courage & confidence - I longed to be as free, as joyous, as lilting & as sculptured - my arms ached to arch above my head in glorification of the music - my feet twitched to point and prance - I envied them all their freedom from inhibition - their pride in their talent, their awareness of their beauty & artistry. This is all true - it is not imagined or dreamed - nor wishful thinking - I have often felt & do feel these things most sincerely.

The Ballet is my favorite art form - it embodies to me the sum of the essences of music, form - the dance, and art - the costumes & scenery - simple or extravagant.

12-10-55 I Will Become A Writer.

I have come to some sort of a conviction that I will become a writer. It has come slowly but very surely of late - phrases, well phrased, come to my mind - a wider, deeper, more encompassing appreciation of the ordinary things all about me - more meaning in everything - a stronger conviction that I will unavoidably put it all on paper little by little and someday wholly - a picture of it came to me yesterday - not a picture of a blossoming, showy and flamboyant, as I might have pictured it months or years ago - but instead the first fundamental sign of life - a tiny green growth bursting from a dry pod beneath the surface of the drab basicness of earth - the merest beginning of the growth toward the eventual hoped-for blossoming.

1952 - Pontiac

Bob and Alice

December 10, 1955 Content

I have been filled so often lately with a feeling of deep content. Yet there was not that light, giddy feeling I have always associated with being happy. And then one moment I realized the difference, in my experience, between being happy & being content. They often come together but not necessarily so - it seems that when I feel lightly happy there appears not to be a black cloud in the lot - I have moments like that every so often now that our Christmas trip is approaching - this appearance of no problems is, of course, a delusion - whereas this mature sense of contentment I have come to recently consists of acknowledging the problems which naturally arise daily and not being overcome by them but instead enveloping them in my realization of the greater gratitude I feel for the bigger, more important, lasting things - it is like smiling deeply and warmly instead of laughing aloud.

Nov. 18-20, 1955 My First New York Visit

Things I remember of my first New York visit -

19th - a soft snow fell all day - I remember leaving the American Museum of Natural History - the sky a cloudy & luminous evening blue - the street lights lighting up the falling snow & silhouetting the statue of three figures at the foot of the steps - everything was glowing, all sparklingly soft - seemed to me to be the essence of New York or what I imagined N.Y. to be - a typical segment of living in New York - the pleasantness, the excitement, the wonderment of that hour at dusk - the time between daylight hours and the night and all it could hold.

Crossed out: Earlier in the day we turned a corner just short of the Empire State Building - the weather was hanging low as shroud - all above a few hundred feet - I looked up just as we turned the corner

My first view of the E.S.Bldg. was a weirdly disjointed one - I saw only a portion of it high off the ground through the low hanging weather - it seemed ghostly, suspended and not really there at all - weird & wonderful -

12-10-55

Now, three weeks after being in New York, I can still feel some of the magic that is New York. Perhaps it's all imagined - perhaps we have all heard so much about N.Y. merely because of its size & its power that we imagine the magic to be there too - how can I say after spending but 2 days there. I am most anxious to see it in the spring though, when there is magic no matter where you are. I reheard Gordon Jenkins' Manhattan Tower last night and as I read the narration along with the recording it swept over me, strong & sweet - he spoke of sitting in the dark & watching the spring eveningtime settle over the skyline - I would like to see that & I feel as though I have.

11-17-55

Today is my kind of day ('course, I know there are many days in any season about which I'm likely to say that) but today is one of the best. The sun is out for the first time in weeks - there is a high wind up here on our hill - blowing the leaves up and around in spirals, whistling and rattling around our TV aerial, and rushing over house & tree tops with the sound of an express train. Yesterday might have been early spring for all the warmth of it except for the tight brown winter buds where the tender pale green ones would be - but today is wintery - cold-temperature dropped almost 50 degrees - and yesterday's boisterous storm clouds have given way to today's blue sky and scattered sky remnants of their rushing tempestuous predecessors.

Today reminds me of a day long ago in another November when I went hunting with a then-dear friend and killed deliberately for the first, last & only time of my life. It might hve been just as cold as this day but it was sunny, windy, exhilerating and we walked so far and with such vigor and enthusiasm that we removed our jackets when we rested high on a haystack to soak up some solar energy and warmth. That was one of the sweet days that exist as game along the string of my life. And today was another of lesser importance - during my walk with the dog I was filled with joy and large gratitude for having available to me such a pleasant place to walk as the road and fields behind us - like a portion of countryside - a haven from streets & traffic & people complete with fences, woods, trees, small & great, a hill-side of grape-vines, and fallen apples, soft to step on, a place where peace & comfort can unfailingly be found.

Copied From Notes - 10-22-55

Copied from notes made on the spot in Shenandoah National Park - 10-22-55

the day was so rich, golden & shiny - more than the human soul can bear - must peel off & absorb only a small nugget at a time - it was the good music we got on the radio that triggered off this flood of inspiration - was food & drink to me - from which I could subsist for weeks -

(on our hike) the grey rocks were splotched with dark green & turquoise lichen giving the whole jumble the effect of mottled jade.

gap = a mountain pass, cleft or ravine

hollow = surface depression, a channel, basin or valley

knoll = a little round hill, a mound

ridge = a range of hills or mountains

sedges = a genus of grasslike * cyperaceous plants, often growing in dense tufts in marchy places
* distinguished from the grasses by having achenes and solid stems

11-2-55 A Lot to Write About

There is a lot to write about - there is our weekend in the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah Valley and our weekend at the fabulous Greenbriar and I will start to write down all I remember that is worth remembering. We drove first along the turnpike on our way to Shenandoah National Park the weekend after the fall coloring was to have been at its peak but I do not see how it could have been more beautiful. I don't believe that the falls in Missouri were ever as completely breathtaking as these two falls I have lived near the eastern mountains - they might be but I do not remember. The hillsides were such masses of bright color as to seem almost artificial as manmade displays and yet here was something man had no hand in and could not duplicate - something utterly and naturally lovely here but which would have seemed garish and gaudy had man made it.

Early in the morning mist filled the deep valleys and made soft grey lakes of hollows and when we drove along Skyline Drive haze faintly veiled the distant hills, muting their colors, but when the sun shone down through the leaves at hand and overhead, the brilliance of color was fairly blinding. For a while we were able to get good music on the car radio and that combined with what was all about me was to be almost more than I could bear. Music always sharpens my emotions and my absorption of any surrounding beauty. I was filled to overflowing with the rich, golden lustre of this autumn day. "Oh, Autumn, be less beautiful or be less brief!" The sky was vivid October blue - the yellow leaves of the hickory, the pink gold of the maple, and the red of the oak were turned to pure translucent fire by the sun's rays - each, the blue and the flame, accentuated the other 'til the eye turned to the scattered evergreens for cooling comfort. We spent the night in a cabin and ate our dinner & breakfast in the beautiful lodge of Skyland.

Our hike to the fire tower through the wilds was everything that matters to me - there was the vernal silence, the peace that it brought to the mind, the crunch and crackle of dry leaves underfoot, the rain-like patter of falling pine needles and occasional acorns, the rich smells of fungi, lichen, pine, decaying vegetable matter, fallen leaves and earth, the limitless array of things to inspect and admire on all sides, the variety of color, pattern & texture, of leaf, bark, stone and berry. There was so much that I cannot put down here - so much that I can only store, not on paper, but in my memory, my mind and heart.

There were trees sloped like artists' brushes - dipped in painters' pots.

The ride home from White Sulphur Springs took us up a narrow winding mountain road - I gasped aloud when I caught my first glimpse of that night's full moon - it was unbelievably large-looking, caught between two mountain slopes, looking for all the world like a giant peeled onion - sleek, translucent & greenish-white.

On the way down to the Greenbriar I saw my first complete rainbow - I could follow its arch without break from horizon to horizon.

There are two things I would wither without - music, classical music, and nature - all the components of the outdoors - or whatever you might wish to call it - in my experience each sharpens the other - I see natural things more wholly, more deeply to the accompaniment of music and, with the help of music, when away from nature, I can conjure up in my mind's eye no end of beloved panoramas from a brook in the woods to a mountain view to a peaceful countryside of fields and farms to a restless ocean's edge. "Behold the sea - the beautiful, the opaline, the strong."

December 28, 1962 - Such Heights

I thot of very little but him during the concert - my thots swelled and quieted as did the music - I felt he was (and still may be) the sunshine and warmth of my life, the blossom the fragrance, the sweetness and brightness, all the clarity and hope that was present in my life; he was to me as the sun-dappled forest floor, as the moon and star-silvered rippling waters - without him my life was drab & shapeless - steadier perhaps but oh, so colorless. Oh, God, I thot as I remembered the walk thru autumn-sunny fields, kisses in the brisk fall air, in warm sun & cold wind - I thot of walks along the lake with his arm around my waist, of being held tight against his tallness, strength & love flowing from each to the other. He was all the light there could be - he reached out his hand to touch me and his touch gilded me - I shone & sparkled through his power. Is he to be ever gone from my air and my space - am I to be ever more empty of his sweet presence? Oh, God, we reached such heights; we reached such heights as some will never see, we gave each other moments of such simple, quite pleasure - such pure sparkling essence of love & life as cannot be allowed to be continuous or long lasting - we must come down once more to soil our feet on reality's earth. He gave me such a precious gift - I cannot tell its value for it will enrich me all the days of my life. I thank all the world for it, and for him, the love of my life.