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.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, October 2, 2009
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.
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
