Monday, February 1, 2010
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.
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.
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 ---
(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.
---------------------
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.
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.
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