CONSTANCY IS ESSENTIAL

Yes, early. it will most certainly need to happen early in the day. Opening the back door right now is like sightseeing at a blast furnace. If we keep the doors open and the AC and fans on, it is tolerable but when you go out it feels a lot hotter than 105. Ms. Hughes reports that it is 114 in Palm Springs and MUGGY. Tomorrow it will be a bit hotter here, but then drops down below 100 and into the low 90s.

Just what you wanted, a weather report. 

After my laps, I did some kicking on my back. As I had on my sunglasses, I had the leisure and vision to watch two birds playing high in the sky. I have no idea what kind they might have been, but they enjoyed dancing together and then soaring off by themselves. The sky was clear blue, with only these small, to-my-eyes black birds taking sweet advantage of the day.

I was going to write that the heat today felt like the hot iron that is just this side of burning the fabric you are working on. And then I recalled the word "scorching"; that's how it felt and smelled. No metaphors needed. 

It is still 80 but it certainly feels hotter. 

The folks at the Senior Center enjoyed the watermelon, which was uncommonly good in my opinion. I have two yellow watermelons in the yard, but I don't know that they are ripe yet. I am pleased that there is another yellow squash of harvesting quality and still another butternut squash on the make.

ALL THE FRUIT IS RIPE

All the fruit is ripe, plunged in fire, cooked,
And they have passed their test on earth, and one law is this:
That everything curls inward, like snakes,
Prophetic, dreaming on
The hills of heaven. And many things
Have to stay on the shoulder like a load
Of failure. However the roads
Are evil. For the handcuffed elements,
Like horses, are going off to the side,
And the old
Laws of the earth And a longing
For disintegration constantly comes. Many things however
Have to stay on the shoulders. Constancy is essential.
Forwards, however, or backwards we will
Not look. Let us swing
As in a rocking boat on the sea.

— Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderin, translated from the German by Robert Bly, lifted from World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time, edited by Katherine Washburn and John S. Major

IN WHICH IT GETS TOO HOT

Well, the flea poisoning man came today. It has been hellacrazy this year. I finally couldn't stand it anymore, plus, my sheets have many tiny bloodstains from me scratching in the night. Emmylou and I are both allergic to fleas, so it is worse for us. Does this fall into the category of too much information?

Much later that day.

It's still hot at 10:30. You know, the sun, that really shines brightly. And at this latitude, it can just be piercing, even late in the afternoon, early into the evening. At the most excellent (good prices, good merchandise) farmer's market in Escondido yesterday, it would not let us be, let us escape. Plus, Escondido being on the way to the desert, it was quite warm. And not enough trees. Let me repeat, not enough trees. There was, however, an excellent bread vendor (the addictive kind of bread), and meltingly good watermelon. 

That said, Escondido has some interesting "old town" parts, fading away. There was a cool fabric store, going out of business, of course. There was an old main street where the dead department stores and dress shops are now empty. There are a few businesses trying to repopulate with what is currently "cool" ... a good coffee shop replete with requisite teenagers arguing about art and the meaning of life, and nice craft beer shop with good food and good prices. I was sorely tempted to drag MW into the bar to play with locals in trivia. (Maybe that's a good gig for me: trivia ringer.)

In other news, today was "payday" by which time we are scraping for cat food and coffee. This necessitates a trip to Costco for the best deals. I chose a new location (Lakewood) only to find there was a huge used book/cd/dvd store right behind. Of course, I could have spent hours but was able to contain myself reasonably.  I found a nicely priced volume of the Cooks Illustrated The Best Soups and Stews (Janet's favorite winter food and yes, I know, I do not need any more cookbooks). I already have my eye on hot and sour soup, which looks reasonably easy. There were some pretty great $1 cds ... my favorite find being Blossom Dearie!

This one is a gem! It's likely good that I did not know about this emporium before now, but it is a good place to kill some time. And who knows, maybe a good place to sell albums ... and a hell of a lot closer than downtown LA.

While I was driving down the coast to Escondido yesterday, I spent some time thinking about our constructions about ourselves. Specifically, I was thinking of my albums which I sold two summers ago. I still feel as if I own them. But, clearly, I do not. I think about specific records which were likely quite valuable. I think of the records that did not make it to cd or even downloadable. Fuck, it hurts. But what is the mechanism by which possessions become part of a person? This does not seem very Buddhist. 

Well, I should be reading Middlemarch instead of fooling around with Halt and Catch Fire or my other wastes of time.

BLACK POSTCARDS

The calendar full, future unknown.

The cable hums the folksong from no country.

Falling snow on the lead-still sea. Shadows

                                       wrestle on the dock.

II

In the middle of life it happens that death comes

and takes your measurements. This visit

is forgotten and life goes on. But the suit is

                                  sewn in silence.

—Tomas Tranströmer, translated from the Swedish by Joanna Bankier, lifted from World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Timezzt, edited by Katherine Washburn and John S. Major

TO MOVE WITH PURPOSE

I am not really anywhere this late morning. Although I took sleeping medication and had not overly indulged in anything, I did not sleep so very well. And a strange melange of songs rattles around in my brain: The Weight, Valerie, and Ooh, Baby, Baby. If any of you can see a connection between these, please let me know.

So, the plan for today is to, at long last, drive down to Escondido (almost San Diego) to visit MW and pick up some garden irrigation equipment for next year's garden. You know, the one I say I am not going to have next year? Speaking of which, I should go out and finish deep watering as it is heading toward 100 this week.

So, keeping this short so I can get on the road. Here's a good poem from this week's New Yorker.

PROJECT

Your clock's been turned to zero,
though there is no zero on a clock.
Your skin is petal soft no matter
how old the starter kit was —
but you will get tired or bored.
That's when the clock starts up.

Your parents want you happy,
but we also want you to set you down,
to get back to our old lives.
How will you turn against us
once you figure this out?

You're about to discover intention.
There are four stuffed animals
in front of you on strings.
They are targets.
You won't understand this for a while.
You flail your arms.
Sometimes you make one bounce.

Are humans the only creatures
who must learn
to move with purpose?
Is that why we harp on motive,
why we think of earth
as some god's handiwork?

— Rae Armantrout, 8/28/17 issue

This is what happens when you ignore the garden. Each of these are well over 4 pounds.

SEES TO THE BOTTOM OF TIME

TO SAY FOR GOING TO SLEEP

I would like to sing someone to sleep,
by someone to sit and be,
I would like to rock you and croon you to sleep
and attend you in slumber and out.
I would like to be the only one in the house
who would know: The night was cold.
And you would like to hearken within and without
to you, to the world, to the woo,—
The clocks call striking to each other,
and one sees to the bottom of time.
And below a strange man passes yet
and rouses a strange dog.
Behind that comes stillness. I have laid
my eyes upon you wide;
they hold you gently and let you go
when something stirs in the dark.

— Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by M.D. Hester Norton


Why oh why oh why oh why is the sleep you get just before you wake up the deepest, most delicious, and most restful? Another of life's unfathomable mysteries? 

Happily for me, after a week or so of no sleep medication, I was able to pick up a new prescription. I had been in a "waking up tired" mode. (If you haven't listened to that song, you really should.) Sleeplessness 

Digression alert ... or digression from digression alert ...

... shouldn't there be a better word for sleeplessness than that which defines the negative here? Google translate gives us versions of insomnia in French and Italian. German is schlaflosigkeit which undoubtedly better describes the state, and looks a lot like I feel. Finnish is unettomuus, and that, too, is far more descriptive than sleeplessness or insomnia. I could go on, but you might not be quite as amused at this kind of digression as I am. Yusuzluq is how the Azerbaijanis say it.

... and then there is the problem of remembering what you were on about when you digressed. 

Just sayin' that sleeplessness for me can be a significant problem. I don't make good decisions (and here there is evidence that I rarely do anyway, which would be another rabbit hole of digression) and cannot focus on much besides relieving my exhaustion.

Contrary to popular belief, .... that was a good start for a sentence of which I have now forgotten the main thought ... oh! I don't nap so well anymore. Maybe Janet is using up all of the nap vibes in the house as she will take three or four naps on a day she is just around the house. That said, a bit of a lie down can be refreshing. 

A person can spend a fair amount of time getting lost on Google translate. (Why is there no word for sleeplessness in Hebrew?)

And so we gird our mental loins (don't think too hard about that) and prepare for the onslaught of a 10-day heat wave. Janet, having lived in California her whole life, is fascinated with the extreme weather that is found in other places. She has been glued to Hurricane Harvey, which I suppose is more interesting than her (annoying) obsession with Shark Tank or endless repeats of Don Lemon, Rachel Maddow, and Brian Williams. She has a difficult time following almost any movie or tv show these days. I wonder if the endless repetition of the news programs makes them easier to follow. Hadn't really thought about that. 

This would be a good moment for me to switch my sleeping schedule as when it gets really hot, around 3:00 or 4:00 pm, the heat becomes so oppressive and disorienting that productivity is a Sisyphean task. Also, the back of the house, where I mostly lurk, stores heat, I think. The heat can be oppressive far into the night. And if there is gardening to be accomplished, it will most certainly need to happen early in the day. 

IF I COULD UNDERSTAND A LITTLE MORE

• April is the cruellest month, breeding
  Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
  Memory and desire, stirring
  Dull roots with spring rain.
  Winter kept us warm, covering
  Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
  A little life with dried tubers.
  • T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land (opening lines)

August is the cruelest month; April can just get over itself. These last few days (and, for me, weeks) have that shuddering death rattle that big American cars of the bad old days made when you turned them off. There may not be lilacs mixing memory and desire, but the zucchini are overabundant and tiresome with too much zest for existence in this existential climate. (I harvested a four pounder last night.)

While watering my dwindling and much neglected garden last night, I noticed the autumnal gold as an undertone to the sunset. Of course, before what passes for Fall and Winter here arrives, we have to go through some more blazing days of ridiculous heat and misery. The weather report for the week is brutal.

Living with my mother is a lot of listlessness. I seem to have an attraction or sensitivity to melancholy and the sad ridiculousness of life. I see myself giving in to the many shortcomings I have learned from her, not the least of which is procrastination and helplessness. (I do believe I have mentioned these before.) 

It's very hard to know "where" she is in her thinking. Perhaps my negativity and bullying have made her retreat even more. She has moments of engagement and being very present. Left to her own devices, she sleeps, not because she is unwell, but because she doesn't know what else to do.

I don't know if I can write myself out of isolation and my personal systemic despair. I generally feel somewhat better when I am in regular touch with this writing and you. Since the Fall of the American Empire became so clear to us last year, many of us feel a constant stress and anxiety about our powerlessness. And a kind of hypnotized inertia at the sight and experience of so much stupidity, hatred, greed, and sociopathology. 

Don't you sometimes yearn for the illusions and hopes of your younger years? Possibilities for redemption and such? At least youthful naïevetè could power you through things. 

My Kermit Place Readers of Brooklyn chose Middlemarch as the summer read. Having read it many years ago, I did not apply myself to re-reading with much enthusiasm. However, I did buy a new copy and desultorily dragged it around. And then it snagged me. SO. MUCH. FUN. Admittedly, it requires more attention than most books I read, but so well-rewarded. Very much worth all the effort. It's very very witty and wise. A selection of my book-darted favorites:

"Oh, I am not angry except for the ways of the world. I do like to be spoken to as if I had common-sense. I really often feel as if I could understand a little more than I ever hear even from young gentlemen who have been to college ..."

"Oh, I have an easy life—by comparison. I have tried being a teacher, and I think am not fit for that: my mind is too fond of wandering on its own way. I think any hardship is better than pretending to do what one is paid for, and never really doing it."

"... but whatever else remained the same, the light had changed and you cannot find the pearly dawn at noon."


"On both occasions Fred had felt confident that he should meet the bill himself, having ample funds at disposal in his own hopefulness. You will hardly demand that his confidence should have a basis in external facts; such confidence, we know, is something less coarse and materialistic; it is a comfortable disposition leading us to expect that the wisdom of providence or the folly of our friends, the mystery of luck, or the still greater mystery of our high individual value in the universe, will bring about agreeable issues, such as are consistent with our good taste in costume, and our general preference for the best style of things."

"With a favor to ask we review our list of friends, do justice to their more amiable qualities, forgive their little offenses, and concerning each in turn, try to arrive at the conclusion that he will be eager to oblige us, our own eagerness to be obliged as communicable as other warmth. Still there is always a certain number who are dismissed as but moderately eager until the others have refused; and as it happened that Fred checked off all his friends but one, on the ground that applying to them would be disagreeable; being implicitly convinced that he at least (whatever might be maintained about mankind generally) had a right to be free from anything disagreeable. That he should ever fall into a thoroughly unpleasant position—wear trousers shrunk with washing, eat cold mutton, having to walk for want of a horse, or to "duck under" in any sort of way—was an absurdity irreconcilable with those cheerful intuitions implanted in him by nature. ..."

  -------------------

Enough I suppose for the moment. Janet is rattling around, wanting to talk to me. This is why writing is a challenge: I prefer to write in the morning, but I get interrupted and then must chase her around to get her out the door. Enough excuses. Where there is a will, we do hear there is a way. And then there is this.

I leave with still another quote from a book I picked up, not sure where I heard about it, Young Radicals in the War for American Ideals. The author is co-author of Hamilton: The Revolution so it has a light rather than an academic touch. 

"After all, it is one of the principals of our nation (as of this writing, anyway) that Americanness isn't a function of race or religion or country of origin, but a willingness to join in a common national project, to uphold certain democratic ideals. In each generation, new conditions make us interpret those ideals in new ways. We are always reconsidering what equality means, how freedom may be used, and what we owe to one another. But the ideals themselves persist.

— Jeremy McCarter