The Last Post of 2020. I am leaving 2020 behind. I am burning bridges. I am moving on.

 Sitting here making a list. More changes. Visible changes. My deadline was Christmas Day 2020. I have learned a lot in 2020, mostly how to be a decent human being and how to recognize when others were not decent human beings. I have also grown very tired of 2020 politics and all the comments on Covid. It's been very difficult to see this on social media. But I have had to look to myself, too. Lots of self-reflection. More to come. I am making a list on what I will not do and will do in 2021. Because Time is Everything, and my Time is so limited. And if this year taught us anything it's that nothing is certain. I knew this, of course, but I have had a master class in reality in 2020 to remind me of harsh and unpleasant facts of life. Again, I look to myself. I look to my own weaknesses. I look to my strengths. I have taken on some new projects and am looking forward to finishing some older ones. I want to do some art work in 2021. I want to travel if I can. That means a vaccination and other sacrifices. That means time looking down, like I am right now, sitting at my desks, one or the other, working. It means work.

I wish you a very Merry Christmas.

A Christmas Carol

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow has fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter,
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty
Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Throng’d the air,
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,—
Yet what I can I give Him,
Give my heart.

– Christina Rossetti 

Today is Shirley Jackson's birthday.

 

“On the moon we wore feathers in our hair, and rubies on our hands. On the moon we had gold spoons.” —Shirley Jackson

I am talking southern pecan pie today.

I want to talk about pie today. I am going to make a pecan pie. I don't really know why, but it sounds like fun and I haven't made one in years now. And a pecan pie is so southern. I've been looking at my recipe files and wow, there were lots of pecan pies in it and I could not remember which one I liked best and I left few exciting notes that I could actually read! lol I had to do some research because making a pecan pie is not something I do a lot and so I don't have the practice. And I am going to put my recipe here and what I could make of my notes and well, if anybody wants to make a comment, go ahead. After all, cooking is an experiment, much like writing, it takes experience and practice to perfect a technique or get your vision across. So here goes:

Ingredients

3 eggs

1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1 heaping tablespoon flour (This means it’s rounded up a pinch or two. Laughing)

1 cup dark corn syrup. (We need to talk about this)

2 tablespoons Butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups pecans (I use chopped pecans, but most people like halves and either works well.)

1 (9-inch) unbaked deep dish pie shell (I always put this out and let it thaw while I am preparing everything)

Let's talk about corn syrup: I use Karo Dark Corn Syrup. That's the southern thing to do, but I had in my notes that one year I used Light Corn Syrup, and one year I used half and half. Apparently the lighter the syrup, the milder the taste is. The darker is the better for me, because I just like the rich taste of the syrup. But I got a lot of compliments the year I used half of each. I don't use maple syrup or any substitute for "corn syrup" because it's not going to set up right. I hear this all the time. Unless you are some kind of great baker, and you might be, but I am not and I know if I do this, it's either going to be a miracle or a big, big mistake. Do that at your own risk.

Let's talk about the most serious problem making a pecan pie. It doesn't set up right. There is nothing worse than a runny pecan pie and apparently I made a few that went in the garbage over the years until my momma said I needed to use a heaping tablespoon of flour in the recipe. lol. A heaping tablespoon doesn't mean much to normal people, but to southern cooks it means don't be too precious when measuring. If you go over a bit, it's not going to ruin anything. But don't go under!!!! lol Another reason your pie can go runny is you don't cook it long enough and you don't let it go to room temperature before you start fooling with it afterwards. A pecan pie has got to set up and I even store my pie in the refrigerator after it cools a bit because I want it to set up firm before I cut it. When you are baking the pie, make an aluminum foil cover for pie crust edges. This keeps the rim of the pie from overcooking while the center gets done.

Oven should be preheated to 350° F.

In a bowl, beat eggs first then stir in your brown sugar and THAT flour, followed by the syrup, melted butter, and vanilla. Mix all this together really well, then add your pecans. Don't overfill the pie shell. You will know when to stop.

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until set. Allow to cool completely. Like I said, don't fool with a pecan pie until it is room temperature. It's just a mess if you do.

I shared this with my friends in France. They made pies. Smiling.

This is about life, too.

“Fantasy, an unflagging optimism is necessary for a writer at all stages of this rough game. A kind of madness is therefore necessary, when there is every logical reason for a state of depression and discouragement. Perhaps the fact that I can react with utter gloom to this is what keeps me from being psychotic and keeps me merely neurotic.”

                      —Patricia Highsmith

We are all living in bubbles.

"Our consciousness of ourselves as separate and permanent and important is actually delusional."

                                              — George Saunders

I remember this day with much happiness.

 

“The past beats inside me like a second heart.”
― John Banville

Nashville, TN, August, 1975.

"Jane Says," Happy Thanksgiving.

 

Destruction by Charles Baudelaire.

 

Evelyn De Morgan, Angel with the Serpent

Destruction by Charles Baudelaire

The Demon is always moving about at my side;
He floats about me like an impalpable air;
I swallow him, I feel him burn my lungs
And fill them with an eternal, sinful desire.

Sometimes, knowing my deep love for Art, he assumes
The form of a most seductive woman,
And, with pretexts specious and hypocritical,
Accustoms my lips to infamous philtres.

He leads me thus, far from the sight of God,
Panting and broken with fatigue, into the midst
Of the plains of Ennui, endless and deserted,

And thrusts before my eyes full of bewilderment,
Dirty filthy garments and open, gaping wounds,
And all the bloody instruments of Destruction!

All Art.

“Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”

                                  ― Franz Kafka

Mother Goddesses aren't real.

“Mother goddesses are just as
silly a notion as father gods.
If a revival of the myths
of these cults gives woman
emotional satisfaction, it does so
at the price of obscuring the
real conditions of life. This is
why they were invented
in the first place.”

— Angela Carter

Shift out of my old skin.

No one wants to be isolated, but this year, some of us are totally alone, or facing a kind of isolation that feels claustrophobic and heavy. I’ve taken some of this time to find out how this could be a benefit to me instead of stressing the negative points. Because it’s much easier to do that without a tribe or influence. It’s in our nature to want contact, to want culture and tribe and belonging and status. To feel good. Facebook and other forms of social media are designed to indulge our needs to be liked and validated. We hang out with people who do that for us. We seek something that makes us feel good. But there is a danger, when an artist is making change, to be entrenched in a tribe, unless the change you seek is WHY you choose a certain supportive group of people. Our artistic tribe determines our artistic behaviors. We will do and say things that bring us praise and approval by our friends. I think it’s easy to understand this because we grow up and are influenced by our families first, then our close friends, then the powerful many, then what we love and admire. Status is everything, even in art. All of that is great until you want something different or need to make a change that is not the “normal” for your tribe. Then watch out. The pull and influence of the tribe, even one you love and respect, will then be against what you are seeking. There are a few things that I have long wanted to do artistically but never could accomplish because of outside influence. Even the weight of someone’s loving regard was too pressing for me and I was too weak to shift out of my old skin. But then a virus came along, and low and behold, I was isolated enough to explore perspectives and values and craft outside my norm and comfort zone, to experiment, to seek new habits I might not have ever sought previously. I hate this virus. But it’s here. And I am adapting. There is an old saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." I have. (Image is Edward Hopper's chalk drawing for Morning Sun.)

Learning to Live Within Time.

“We live in a world in which it is impossible to anticipate most of the contingencies that will arise. Neither the political context, nor the inventions, nor the fashions, nor the weather, nor the climate are precisely specifiable in advance. There is, in the real world, no possibility of working with an abstract space of all the contingencies that may evolve. To do real economics, without mythological elements, we need a theoretical framework in which time is real and the future is not specifiable in advance, even in principle. It is only in such a theoretical context that the full scope of our power to construct our future can make sense.” 

                 ― Lee Smolin

When I was young, I wished that I would never grow up, and if I did, not too much. Just enough.

I was thinking about my weaknesses of character today. I suppose if I could offer two examples of that weakness it would be my love of Marc Chagall and Brian Molko, two artists that get mixed reviews and are considered "childish" with "narrow focuses" and a "nostalgia for childhood and/or adolescence." Often I wonder though if it's just their sense of amazement at life. I often consider myself a bride of amazement, and that the sum of my ambition is just that, Being amazed!- which I think describes both Chagall and Molko well. Perhaps that is my weakness and my attraction to their art. Some people don't even consider Chagall worthy. I adore him. Some people absolutely do not like Molko, I adore him also. And maybe that's the weakness of character, the idea that the three of us never really wanted to grow up. Laughing. It kind of spills over into my life in all ways. My love of superlatives, my ability to change my mind, the fact that half my life is just revision. I don't like burning bridges, etc. but I can and when I do, I never look back except in rare occasion and that includes most things I create. This is Chagall's Between Light and Darkness. It's really about desire and longing I think. And I feel that this is what I think about in life, in writing, in most things, and so does Molko when he writes his twisted little adolescent love songs. It's a weakness in some ways. And maybe my only strength, too. Let's not speak of Molko's depression. Or mine. When we are depressed, the world is gloomy. His depression is "wider" than my depression is. His is a psychological condition, where I experience a kind of depression in reaction to stress or situation. Chagall managed his better.

Rumer Godden Quote

“There is an Indian proverb that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional, and a spiritual . Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person.”

                         — Rumer Godden

Belief.

“Grace does not destroy nature but perfects it.”  

                    —Aquinas

Sleeping Beauty by Archibald Wakley

Sleeping Beauty by Archibald Wakley, 1906

I have been turned into an animation by my grandson.

 

I have been turned into an animation by my grandson. He got the hair right, that is jeans which I always wear, glasses, earrings, and I often wear a gray top or jacket. Lipstick, too. SO cool. Colin knows me well.

Today is Momma's Birthday, and a Selfie.

 Today is my Momma's birthday. She was born on October 13, 1919. Yes, over a hundred years ago. She died in 2009, almost age 90 and I still miss her so much. I had to run errands today, the most important one, getting gas for the car. I always wait to the last minute, till I am literally running on fumes, and so there I am, getting gas, and I don't remember where the gas cap release is. I just stood there smiling, thinking I might have to google it and then I remembered it was on the door. I hate getting gas. It's the one thing I never had to do until after John died. I mean, it's so annoying and smells awful and it's just not something I like to do at all. Someone else always did it for me. I am old enough to remember when a guy at the "filling station" pumped your gas and washed your windshield. I am old enough to remember putting gas on my Daddy's tab, too. Laughing. God, I miss those days, when my Daddy paid for my gas. 

All this week I have been thinking of my Momma. How incredible a human being she was and I have been seriously reflecting on what she would think of society at present, of what advice she would give me if I came asking. And I always asked her opinion on something even if I knew I might not agree with it. She was the kind of person who discussed things thoroughly, exploring all angles and such. She was wise that way, also tolerant and patient if it was not something she desperately needed to do or want. Laughing. She would have also forgotten where the gas cap release was and she would have spilt gas, too, just like I did this morning.  Momma hated the automobile if she had to drive or be responsible. She liked to be a passenger.  I don't think she got her driver's license till she was 45, and never was a good driver. She was Queen of the fender bender. Once she even backed into a police car. Because she hated to drive, she often trained her children to do it, at ages that were not legal. I could drive a car at 13 and often drove it on our extended trips, pulling over to exchange seats with Momma if there was a roadblock where the police stopped and asked for driver's license and stuff. Those did happen back on the old days.  Ah, olden days!!

Someone told me today how much I looked like my mother. Oh, Momma. Yes, I do look like her. I think I am a pale reflection of a woman who was a force of nature, a fierce creature, but then again, I might be more like her than I am willing to admit. I think some of our arguments over the years were born out of our weaknesses which were also likenesses.  We could both be cold and cruel. Opinionated when pushed. We were also too blunt. We pushed back when pushed too far. These were also gifts as well as curses.  Cognitive objectiveness ran through our veins when we needed it. We were always willing to change our minds and look at things another way. We were also women who could remain coldly observant when situated in a very mixed environment or predicament. I have never forgotten that.  That is a gift and I learned it from watching her and how she lived.

Simple things I am grateful for, things my Momma insisted on:

Having chores as a child.

Watching little TV as possible.

Reading, doing homework, on my own.

Learning to be alone and not entertained all the time

Manners. 

Paying attention to what other people do instead of what they say.

Listening but not being afraid to talk.

Having the right to say no.

Never stop learning new things.

Loving as much as possible.

My mother's name was Pauline Church Harrington. She was born poor, lived a hard life, for most of her adult life was a working mother. She was flawed, as all people are, and had her weaknesses, but she was a force of nature, and I miss her. I miss her so much.

Into the darkness they go......

Victor Prouvé, Vision d'Automne, 1899

“Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. ”

― Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Giaour

"But first, on earth as vampire sent, Thy corpse shall from its tomb be rent, Then ghastly haunt thy native place, And suck the blood of all thy race."

—Lord Byron, The Giaour

Fragment: "Igniculus Desiderii"

To thirst and find no fill, -- to wail and wander
With short unsteady steps, -- to pause and ponder, --
To feel the blood run through the veins and tingle
Where busy thought and blind sensation mingle, --
To nurse the image of unfelt caresses
Till dim imagination just possesses
The half-created shadow, then all the night
Sick . . .

                                 —Percy Bysshe Shelley

                              

I am definitely akin to the cat.

Young Woman Holding a Cat by Gwen John

In August, I let an old friend read some of my WIP, which is really something I don’t like to do. I suppose it’s because I am always editing the WIP and I don’t need people wasting their time on something that is likely to end up in the garbage can. It always does especially if it’s in the first 150 pages because I rewrite those pages over and over as I write along. While reading she suddenly asked me out of nowhere, if I had based one of the characters on myself, and then she added, “and the cat character too…those two are a lot alike.” Rarely do I ever find myself dumbfounded and speechless by a reader’s comment. That’s not my personality at all. But I was stumped that maybe I had written myself into a book unconsciously, without a plan. Of course, this person has known me over 30 years. I have to admit, I stopped writing at that moment and began reading all the little vignettes I had written in the last year for this book, and low and behold, I had not only written myself into this story, I had written what it was like to be a cat person. 

 Cat people are different from dog people in many ways, though some people are both cat and dog people. The latter just love animals. But this essay is more about psychology than just being an animal lover. People who really love ONLY cats are very different people and a much smaller percentage of the population. I’ve always known this, long before Google ever existed. I knew it as a child, just from my childhood neighborhood which I believe was very representative of the general population. Dogs were everywhere, in over half the households. Of course, some people did not have pets at all. But rarely known was the “strictly cat lover.” There was only one on my street and no, I was not the one. We were not allowed to have pets in the house for various reasons. But we had dogs, cats, rabbits, turtles, birds, you name it, all outside in the backyard like a little zoo.

When I look at my characters, the ones the reader/friend mentioned, I realize how aloof and set apart they must appear to the reader. In some ways that makes them less likable and huggable. At the same time, it is those very characteristics that enables them to solve the story’s major challenge. No one else in the story could do it. And that story problem made me think of cats, how silent and dispassionate they are, how they are able to strike back if annoyed or confronted, how secretive and covert they can be when stalking, how open they are to change and new ideas. Cats are very creative. Less than 12% of the population truly loves cats for who they are, hunters and stalkers. In fact, cats are still carnivorous hunters like their distant ancestors. I have always been a cat person. It is the only pet that I bonded with over the years. They are independent creatures and I suppose that is something I truly value. 

Kitty the Cat and I are best friends. Who knew?

A Drop of Night by Stefan Bachmann

"This empire of suffering and pain. There is no end to it. There cannot be. When we are poor we wish to be rich, when we are rich we wish to be loved, when we are loved we wish for freedom from pain and endless life and unchanging happiness. It is a great, unstoppable conundrum."

                                   —Stefan Bachmann, A Drop of Night

Fair is Foul, Foul is Fair

 

Fair is Foul, Foul is Fair

October 3, 2013, Memphis Zoo

                                                                                  Colin

The transformation of Chloris

 

"As she talks, her lips breathe spring roses: I was Chloris, who am now called Flora." 

Ovid

Marc Chagall

Still walking in the early mornings....

 I am still walking in the early mornings. September has been all about two things, writing on the novel, and cleaning up the house and making repairs. I suppose writing is cleaning up and making repairs, too. I am going to miss summer. I am very much a summer girl. I have fantasies of lying on a beach in some place like Barcelona or Viareggio, and listening to Mediterranean waves, followed by bedtime where I can look out a window and see the stars. Recently, I have thought about how to do this in my own home, but so far, have not made the attempt. It would mean moving lots of furniture and rugs and asking for help, and then I would have a bed in front of a window, and I’ve done that before, and it was not ideal. So, I will have to settle for the fantasy.  The book is consuming right now. The housework, too. I don’t see a break in that labor until middle October. So maybe not so much blogging and social media.

Meditation by Vojtech Preissig

Vojtech Preissig - Meditation

Mysterious Gardens by Aleksandra K. Nowak

Mysterious Gardens by Aleksandra K. Nowak

Relevant in life right now. People need to understand this.

“Reason cannot produce the poetry disorder does.” 
               ― Angela Carter

Young Girl with Peacock by Edmond Aman-Jean, 1895

 

Young Girl with Peacock by Edmond Aman-Jean, 1895

Quote from The Essex Serpent

“But in the end it was purpose I wanted, not achievement—you see the difference?” 

                                                   — Sarah Perry

Ophelia by Jean Baptiste Bertrand

Ophelia by Jean Baptiste Bertrand

Caliban on a branch

 

Caliban on a branch, 1881 Odilon Redon

The Value of Art

“I believe that all great art holds the power to dissolve things: time, distance, difference, injustice, alienation, despair. I believe that all great art holds the power to mend things: join, comfort, inspire hope in fellowship, reconcile us to our selves. Art is good for my soul precisely because it reminds me that we have souls in the first place.”

                                      — Tilda Swinton

Depeche Mode - Come Back - Studio Session EMIi

Haunted

 

Johnny 

(I am so haunted)

Come Back by Depeche Mode

Come back, come back to me

I'll be waiting patiently

Come back, come back to me

I'll be waiting here patiently

 

Walking a thin white line between love and hate

Wasting all my time in another world

In another place

I could use a little company

A little kindness can go a long way

 

Weeks turn into months

Months turn into years

Reaching the same conclusions

Gathering up the fear

 

Come back, come back to me

I'll be waiting patiently

Come back, come back to me

I'll be waiting here patiently

 

A light will always shine in the heart of you

In truth and in reality

Only blindness can hide it away

I could use a little restraint

A little kindness can go a long way

 

Weeks turn into months

Months turn into years

Reaching the same conclusions

Gathering up the fear

Living the same delusions

Gathering up the fear

 

Gathering up the fear

Gathering up the fear

Gathering up the fear

Come back

Come back

Come back

Come back

Come back

(Notes: I suppose this is my life's theme song right now. I love this song, but sometimes it makes me cry.)

August Selfie

 

                                                                               Janie 

I am old, but this is how I feel.

Eugene de Blaas

August 2020 Time to Create

The essential ingredient in a temenos is the perimeter that marks out the space, whether by a wall, a fence, a hedge of flowers and bushes, or some rocks that only imply the the full perimeter. Having crossed the border, we find ourselves in a special place where certain things happen and other things do not.

              —Thomas Moore

                  The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life

Writing

“Woolf penned roughly 535 words and crossed out 73 of them, netting her 462 words for her day’s work. Let’s say she worked for three hours. That’s about 178 words an hour including the words she deleted—and Woolf was writing at the height of her creative powers.” 

                                    — Louise DeSalvo

A Reverie

A Reverie, 1868, John Everett Millais.

Summer Girl

Truth

“Neither Darwin nor Nietzsche was politically correct, fortunately for us.” 
                          

                                    — Daniel C. Dennett

The Secret by Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale

Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale (1871-1945), The Secret. Pencil, watercolour.

This Day...This Night

When you know you are running out of time, the lens through which you view life is suddenly very clear and more focused. And everything you feel is razor sharp.

When the World Seems Overwhelmingly Grim

“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.”

                                                            — Pablo Neruda

Princess with a Spindle by Hanna Pauli

'Princess with a Spindle' • Hanna Pauli, 1896

Marc Chagall quote

"If all life moves inevitably towards its end, then we must, during our own, colour it with our colours of love and hope.” 

                            — Marc Chagall

Johnny, four years later

  Today is John's birthday. It is the fourth birthday that I have celebrated without him, because in my heart there is always a little celebration that he was born and lived and that he loved me. We were two oddballs, little freaks, outsiders, desperately romantic people looking for a connection and we found it. That's a miracle, because as I live and breathe now, I see so many in the world who never experience that sort of miracle. During this self-quarantine due to Covid-19, I've had a lot of time alone to reflect on the beauty that one single human being can be. And he was beautiful. Funny. Smart. Kind. His kindness made him a great favorite among so many groups of people. His work ethic, his ability to negotiate challenges, his willingness to listen.

And he listened....

This is one of the things I miss so much.

I remember the day this photo was taken. He loved his grandchildren so much and he told me personally that his deepest regret in dying was that he would not live to see them as teenagers and adults. And he meant it. 

There are some aspects and circumstances that I have yet to address concerning his death. And I suppose his "dying." But I do possess an inkling of what they are. There is no dress rehearsal for such an event and it was so tragic and painful an experience that I did not have the ability to view it from any judicious position. I had only one stance, that of trying to mitigate his suffering and I suppose my own while it was happening. There is a little lie that  caregivers tell themselves when they are caring for a loved one who is dying. It is this: "I will keep you alive, one day at a time."  I tried.

Happy Birthday, Johnny.

Sign, Still The Widow.

John Lewis quote

"You must be bold, brave, and courageous and find a way... to get in the way." 

                            —John Lewis

The Shrinking Season by Michael R. Burch

The Shrinking Season

by Michael R. Burch

 

With every wearying year

the weight of the winter grows

and while the schoolgirl outgrows

her clothes,

the widow disappears

in hers.

It's July, people!

Wow!  July is here, already the 7th of the month. Time flies when you are having fun. I suppose time flies when you are miserable too. Ben came today and he mowed the yard and he and I worked for nearly three hours in the backyard, cleaning up. It was hot and I think it felt somewhere around 100 degrees out in the sun. I had to stop two or three times, drink water and rest. Getting old. After he left, the heat was really oppressive and one of those storms blew up. The rain poured for another hour. I've had a good start to the month if now an awkward one. Too much going on, too many things fluttered around my head, that antsy feeling I always get when I want something to be done before it is done and I know I am just going to have to be patient.  So grateful that I have survived depression and am drug free. I keep posting this because I don't like chemicals  messing with my head, even when I know they are doing the right things. I just don't. And now I am free of them and still doing very well. I have to keep a close eye on my moods, how I sleep, and how I handle stress. It all looks good.

I bought a nice camera and some lens. The lens are everything and the most expensive things. I am interested in low light photography at the moment. I want to do some interiors with people. I want black and white. I researched it for nearly a year because I wanted to do what some film people do with a digital camera. So many people were helpful in buying the right tools to do this. Not the most expensive, the ones that worked for me, a beginner. Pleased so far. Lots of practice.

The novel is going good. Kind of scary. So many years of trying and lots of failures. Now that I am moving along without too much fuss, it's kind of scary. But it's not so much work that it feels bad or overwhelming. I can deal. I have another couple projects working side by side. Nothing ambitious as the novel and it's all good. Not too much work. Not a form of procrastination either. 

I miss Johnny. I've been alone so much of this year due to C-19. Not having my loved ones around more makes me miss him, but I am not too weepy or sad. He's been gone for nearly four years now. I am used to sleeping alone. I am used to doing everything alone. I know I am alone.

Listening to Placebo's Loud Like Love right now. Molko has worked for sincerity here. He's still rootless. He's still a bit sad as ever. He's still alone, too. I wonder if he is like that now?  If he is still as rootless as ever? It's 2020. Soon we will have new music and I'll be able to hear it, if the rootlessness is still there.

Ben and I ended our day with a serious talk on politics, the nature of fascism in our country and how people are so divided. I could only think of how fragile everything really is. Because of my childhood in the South, I've never really believed in American Exceptionalism. Oh, I know we have done good things. But we are still a wild and highly reactive political beast. I've given all my children a free press to move, knowing I would not. Of course, Ben and I are realists. We are not cynics, but we have a good sense of what is happening. It's troubling. It's all troubling.

I thought about love today. Real love. 

When You Are Old

WHEN you are old and grey and full of sleep, 
And nodding by the fire, take down this book, 
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look 
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; 

How many loved your moments of glad grace, 
And loved your beauty with love false or true, 
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, 
And loved the sorrows of your changing face; 

And bending down beside the glowing bars, 
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled 
And paced upon the mountains overhead 
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.” 

                                 ― W.B. Yeats

THIS. IS. VERY. IMPORTANT.

“I had them read John Updike’s Rabbit Run. They came into the next lesson just incredibly outraged how sexist the character was – and really angry that I should ask them to read it because: how could you possibly relate to a misogynist character like that? I said: ‘You really can’t begin to imagine a character that wants to run away from his responsibilities?’ They looked at me like I had confessed to sympathy for a murderer. When I at one point tried to argue that racism and sexism were not quite the same things I had people shouting ‘Gender is a social construct!’ and so on at me. I said ‘Go home and look between your legs and tell me if that is a social construct’ and then of course all hell broke loose.” Gaitskill smiles, slightly mystified. “Literature is not a realm for politeness as far as I am concerned.”

                                      — Mary Gaitskill

Curses are like wishes.

The days are long now and I wake early, too early.  For some reason, I now decide how I want my day to go in those early hours. Usually I just lie in bed and think about all the things I should do versus all the things I want to do. Some are chores that have to be done. But this morning, I decided to paint my gate and make a wishing  tree out of my jasmine. It was impulsive. I had been thinking about it for a few weeks but I had no plan to do it today. The house needed cleaning, clothes to be washed, laundry to be folded. I am in the middle of reading Bad Behavior by Mary Gaitskill, and I really love her writing and I wanted to finish at least three more stories in that collection, but out I went into the garden. I watered some plants and then I looked at my gate and thought. I am going to paint it now, paint it green, put stars on it. Hang wishes. I suppose this is because I am writing so much on the novel now. I am in that world. I talk to my characters, I think ab0ut them over a bowl of cereal. I wonder at how anyone will like Stella, my heroine.

"Curses are like wishes."

That's a line from the novel.

It's a very simple line. And yet....

                                                                 

I ended up cleaning the house, too. I even vacuumed. Tomorrow and the next day I am going to write on the novel. Two days I will do nothing but write and plot and work out things in my mind. Live in that imaginary town I have created. Be one of the citizens. Be Stella.