NOT PROXIMITY BUT DISTANCE

Here in the department of overwhelmed and tired, I am getting ready to turn off Shtisel and go to sleep. Last night’s adventure in sleeping did not go over very well. Inexplicably, I could not fall all the way into restful peace. Generally, that leads to me being short-tempered and non-productive. Fortunately, that didn’t really happen. I wondered where the day went and then recalled that I spent three daylight hours watching the last three episodes of Caliphate. You know when you get that narrative itch, you just have to scratch it. 

Afterwards, when it was hotter and sunnier and generally less appropriate, I got to work on the garden project. Just another place where there is too much to do. It is very daunting and this part, the digging up the grasses in the lawn is not really much fun. However, I invested in some plants that really need to be in the dirt or they will die, So, sunspear, columbine, hydrangea, stock, ranunculus, impatiens, pansies, and petunias were duly moved from root bound pot to the ground. Someone had run over my milkweed or pulled them up by the roots, so I transplanted them, too. Wish them luck as they don't look very well. My dead clematis, however, is flourishing and beautiful.

The neighborhood feels a bit different. One neighbor I had never met, Maria, came by with a big bag of lemons that is still sitting on the lawn. I gave her some of our blowsy peach roses that are coming in after all the rain. It’s all a work in progress. The next-door neighbors of kindness were all out in the evening. There are a lot of people, 8, in a three-bedroom house with only one bathroom. Yet they remain outwardly cheerful. The grandbaby, Kaylani was learning to pedal her three-wheeler herself. She stopped in to pet Emmylou. Only later did I realize social distancing was not observed.

And so, in the spirit of productivity, I bid you goodnight. To be continued tomorrow.

Now, here's a brighter start. I woke up at 7:00 all refreshed and somewhat more energized after a fun dream about going to see Dave Alvin with the Cullinanes.

Neither core nor groove comes easily to me today. There isn't much for me to share or expound. A Day in the Life repeats in my head, "I read the news today, oh boy ..." We here in the USA and probably the planet have taken this exercise in worst-case scenario far too far. Reading the news in depth  mires me in sadness and inertia.

I will keep this short and pointless and give myself some credit for perseverance and discipline (took me a long time to come up with that word). I am so desperate to get out of my current state and bad habits (taking on too many projects, not finishing them, distracting myself, living in fantasy and denial, yada yada yada) that I don't do much of anything. I will try to move to see if I can't solve some of these problems.

Morning hours are so precious, they fly by so quickly, yet the evening stretches on and on. Why is that? Imma go to the bank and the store.

STAR BLOCK

There is no such thing
as star block.
We do not think of
locking out the light
of other galaxies.
It is light
so rinsed of impurities
(heat, for instance)
that it excites
no antibodies in us.
Yet people are
curiously soluble
in starlight.
Bathed in its
absence of insistence
their substance
loosens willingly,
their bright
designs dissolve.
Not proximity
but distance
burns us with love.

— Kay Ryan, The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, New York, Grove Press, 2010