TIME WILL NEVER RUN OUT

A lily hangs on to its glory.

“If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.”

— Virginia Woolf

Ouch. Probably very deeply true. But I imagine sometimes this lack of personal transparency is not due any particular perfidy as much as being lost somewhere in that dark wood and not seeing a path to telling the truth about yourself. 

Meanwhile, not worrying about telling truths or much of anything else on this grey Labor Day Sunday. Not that there aren't things to worry about, but Tuesday is soon enough to head back into the mental/existential fray.

Not that I think this is reason for me to go back to daily red wine consumption, (as no matter what it does for your mental state, it is a lot of calories that might be better spent in other ways), I found this article on the salutary effects of drinking a spot of wine.

There's a nice review by James Wood in this week's New Yorker (September 2, 2013) of a new book by Caleb Crain, Necessary Errors. 

The friends convene and reconvene, party and argue, eat and smoke, dance and make love, conscious that their time together is precious, brief, and eccentric. Prague makes it eccentric, because the city is a peculiar utopia for them, a place where “real life” can be suspended. After graduating from college, Jacob worked, in America, in an office, and dreads going back: “To be here was something more than a holiday; it was a kind of rift in the net, so new that it was not yet clear how it would be rewoven into the systems of money and responsibility.” The novel captures this sense of golden interruption, when to be young is to feel that time will never run out, that you can “talk for hours over lunch about the purpose of life, without embarrassment.” Prague functions as a university should have—as a place where error and accomplishment are close kin, and waywardly explored.

The "time never running out" feeling is a bit here in Schroon Lake this evening. It has been a slow, quiet couple of days. This morning Ms. Liz and I had a lovely extended conversation which pleased us both greatly. The rest of the day has been spent reading, napping, and cooking. 

And so at 10:33 at the end of the summer season, these hard-working folks are kicking back. There is a party in starting in about 90 minutes and continuing into the wee-er hours of the morning. Inasmuch as I think it would be fun and I know lots of the folks, there is such an expansive indulgence to doing nothing more than trotting up and down the long hallway for a chocolate almond cookie and a cup of coffee or having another small cup of wine when I feel like it. Liz and Larry are both down at the Timberwolf being good townspeople. There's an artist there who is a big enough deal to open for Ani deFranco ... Hammel or Hammil or something along those lines. But I know if I go down there, I will just drink a gin and tonic I don't really need and talk to people I am not in the mood for. I would rather revel in the simple moment-to-moment of softly pleasing myself with what can be obtained up and down this long hallway. I mean, the dishwasher just stopped and all I can hear is a fan and the crickets. Why interrupt this sweet music with the addition of voices and egos?

The French writer Maurice Blanchot, in an eloquent essay entitled “Friendship,” suggests that great friendships are grounded only superficially in proximity. Their real element, he argues, is distance, a kind of separation that “becomes relation.” He calls this separation “discretion,” a discretion that foreshadows “the final discretion,” which is death. Blanchot seems to mean that true friendship, true love, encompasses, comprehends, and anticipates loss.The French writer Maurice Blanchot, in an eloquent essay entitled “Friendship,” suggests that great friendships are grounded only superficially in proximity. Their real element, he argues, is distance, a kind of separation that “becomes relation.” He calls this separation “discretion,” a discretion that foreshadows “the final discretion,” which is death. Blanchot seems to mean that true friendship, true love, encompasses, comprehends, and anticipates loss.

A PRE-FALL PALL?

Sitting in the living room at the Strand Theater downstairs, the church next door ringing quite a few bells, Jane nervously barking in the long hallway. We feel as if we are waiting for rain again. And just as I finally mustered the focus to try a walk, which I have not done in a few days. Oh well. As it is the last weekend of the season, rain permitting there will be a street dance and fireworks tonight, and perhaps I can get some of my exercise there. In the meantime, there are the stairs which I have come and down quite a few times, and the 75 foot hallway to get from the kitchen to the bathroom.

Is it ominous or is it sad or is it me having not taking my meds yesterday and having had more than my usual share of beautiful zinfandel? Summer’s end again. The days getting shorter and the leaves already preparing for their fall flight.

I have been trying to nap a bit, but I couldn’t fall all the way asleep nor did I have the requisite focus to read all the challenging material I brought. I suppose I could have opted for the listening to a book, but I drowsed instead.

Although I refused to listen to him, I understand the O-man gave us a song-and-dance about why we need to bomb Syria right now. That might account for some of the pall. If we put as much money into alternative sources of energy as we do into war, we wouldn’t have to worry about oil quite so much. All in all, not a pretty picture.

But I do love being up here, as I have said so often, even if I am a bit grumpy. Larry and I did some junk shopping. I picked up some “smalls”, mostly buttons, vintage sewing notions, a yellow McCoy bowl, and some paper ephemera as well as a couple of kitchen items. Oh and a really nice 1960s sewing/travel iron that gets plenty hot and will be great for the Sew-In that Louise and I will eventually have.

I don’t know. Maybe I should just grab the umbrella and take my chances on the rain. I didn’t get to swim yesterday when it was beautiful as I was drafted into being the ticket seller for a special showing of an independent film. That was fun as the crowd wasn’t the usual, not that I have sold tickets often enough to recognize everyone.

Then again, napping sounds enticing too.

 

A CLEAR DELINEATION OF REALITY

Kitchen.

There’s no Wi-Fi on this bus, which makes it only one of the bummers that I am, in fact, on a bus and not on a train on way to the Adirondacks. This prevents me from doing the rest of my sociative.net assignment as I had planned, but given the vagaries of internet connectivity anyway, I suppose it is all a wash.

One of the advantages of being on a bus is being so high, high enough to look into the cars we pass. It’s a view I don’t have all that often. I would have never known that driver over there was dressed in desert camo and is probably a serviceman could I not see into his car. Now crossing the northern Thaddeus Kosciuszko Bridge (there’s one in New York City, too).

It was raining this morning, not a hard rain, but a real rain. Although there are still grey clouds in the sky, I can see a substantial patch of blue. I am dressed for hot weather, sleeveless shirt, my ubiquitous flip-flops (… does anyone call them Zorries anymore?), and lightweight pants, so I particularly hope the weather improves. Plus MOZ and Deb have requested that I take an end of summer dip in Schroon Lake on their behalf. It’ll have to be pretty warm.

I am already ready for nap, having awoken at 6:30. I remember those work mornings when my first thought would be “When, how soon, can I get back to sleep?” I have already requested Frank Zappa and Led Zepplin for our audio/visual listening/watching focus on this weekend, but I won’t really be able to stay up too late. I need to do this sociative.net work in a timely way as their corporate client is Bloomberg and one wouldn’t want to fail to deliver.

So, back to getting caught up on magazine reading for another 45 minutes or so, at which time I should be in Whitehall where Larry is picking me up. We have not been on a single junk store excursion this summer, though I have been up here three other times. We are getting some Larry-Sally Anne bumming around time. I’ll let you know if I find anything particularly excellent. Then again, I will be on the train again, so I won’t be able to lug much around. And I don’t need anything.

Deep relaxing sigh. I just love being here at the theater. I wish I could explain it or share it or something. A few of you have been here, so you know what I mean. My kind of relaxing, which include some visual stimulation. Right now, I am standing in the kitchen and I can hear the soundtrack of Elysium pounding overhead as I am approximately under or behind the screen. When it is a busy night and I am not helping out selling tickets or candy, I listen to all audience walk down the aisles to their seats. There is a tad of “behind the scenes” coolness along with just feeling as if this is one of “my places” in the world.

I did get caught up on some reading while on the bus. For any of you who still love and have time for literature and great magazines, New York Magazine had a great interview with the founder of The New York Review of Books a few months back, In Conversation with Robert Silvers. I liked this comment about Edmund Wilson

"He was a man who wanted to see a clear delineation of reality, however various."

Theater fire escape.

A TURNED LEAF FOR A NON-BELIEVER

... all of the characters were so tightly wrapped and it was so beautiful to watch them unwrap one another.
— Carol Rifka Brunt, Tell the Wolves I'm Home

Yeah. This is almost true of The Brothers K. There's just so much of it that seems angry, vituperative, indirect, hysterical, and just plain ugly. An unpleasant reading experience, or listening experience for that matter. I do understand that the plot and the motivations are first rate, but ugh. It isn't fun or pleasurable or enlightening, for me at least. But, so far at least, Carol Rifka Brunt wraps her characters tight enough.

Why I am sleepy is a mystery. Cooder, Emmylou, and I took a comfortable nap on the SIP this afternoon. I woke up and Emmylou was on the floor next to me. Her fur was a veritable sea of erratic waves. She is a hard sleeper.

Cooder was more in the classic mode.

And now to bed. Tomorrow will be full of anxiety as I prepare for Schroon Lake on Thursday and continue writing a couple of scenes that Louise and I hammered out again today. 

Managed to get over to the reservoir bike path for a 40 minute walk. I eschewed The Brothers K as I have had a stay of discussion. Instead, I focussed on the graphic novel and worked out some pages. Got some new pictures too.

And for you non-believers, the leaves are already turning.

IN WHICH I AM THE NON-GOOD KIND OF FUNKY

I'll start this here, on the couch in the front room where, notwithstanding the rain, there are still critters out there making with the night noise. My sheets are all clean and tidy ready for me to tuck in and conk out. Cooder has already approved them. Even at her advanced age, she was ready to play in the sheets when I remade the bed. In the Park Slope apartment, Emmylou would race across to help me make the bed, but she doesn't do that here. I suppose she gets her kicks by racing up the stairs when I head up to bed.

J is practicing the bass. M is likely reading upstairs in bed. She might have eschewed her usual sweet goodnight as I was on the telephone. I am feeling a bit punk, almost allergic or slightly ill. I certainly hope I am not getting sick before my Schroon Lake visit. I was kind of glum today, partly because of the weather, partly because of my indifferent health, and partly because I am in a bit of a writer's snit on the graphic novel. And the adjustments I have been making to my diet and the walking have thrown in a few issues and challenges as well. Ok. Not to give up. 

I wasn't looking forward to a walk and then there was the threat of rain, too. I just couldn't make a decision about anything. At long last, I decided I had to make pizza for dinner (ingredients demanded), so I had to go up to The Tomato Man on the hill and get a couple of fresh ones, so I wouldn't drive to the reservoir to walk so that I would be close enough to home to make dinner in a timely fashion. You following this? Even if you don't care.

I was dreading the walk, too, because The Brothers K is so unpleasant to listen to. Particularly as I was feeling a non-good funky anyway. Hey! Liberation! I decided to walk without listening as it was giving me a reason to NOT walk. And then I called Louise instead and we hammered out some new things for the screenplay and graphic novel. Kind of good stuff. 

Now to bed, maybe a hot shower before will help. Listening to an audio book is really helping to sleep, although I am not sure how much I retain. That's not so significant. 

Okay. Showered. Emmylou joined me in the bathroom. Cooder is in her place on the pillow near where my head will soon be. We can call it a day and now call it a night.

PRIVATE CYCLES

It's not exactly the cheeriest way to start the morning, at least in this instance, but Poem-of-the-Day featured this poem by a niece of Samuel Taylor Coleridge ... No instant happiness here.

"My True Love Hath My Heart and I Have His"

by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

None ever was in love with me but grief.    

   She wooed my from the day that I was born; 

She stole my playthings first, the jealous thief,    

   And left me there forlorn. 

The birds that in my garden would have sung,    

   She scared away with her unending moan; 

She slew my lovers too when I was young,    

   And left me there alone. 

Grief, I have cursed thee often--now at last    

   To hate thy name I am no longer free; 

Caught in thy bony arms and prisoned fast,    

   I love no love but thee.

I know this frame of mind annoys or dismays many of you, but truth be told, this is often how I feel. And I think Mary Elizabeth Coleridge was singing the blues here. Anyone of you musicians out there want to set this to music? I think it's got the makings of a hit.

Another Sunday, work to do, walks to take, prep for trip to Schroon Lake. LD gave me a pedometer and I will be damned if I can figure out how to set the damn thing. I put it away for a couple of weeks and re-addressed, but I still can't make it work. I'll just have to walk without knowing WTF.

MOZ sent an interesting article from the Huffington Post yesterday, 23 Signs You're Secretly an Introvert. (Evidently, this one is making the digerati rounds.) Louise and I have had long conversations about introversion and how we have to work to overcome this. I have been labelled as an extrovert and have had to disabuse close friends from time to time about how I really feel. We do learn to compensate, sometimes perhaps too well, and thus folks make false assumptions about us. Most of these statements are true, except for maybe #12, as I am always trying to be good at everything and have far too many interests. I do particularly like the last sentence, which is true for introverts, extroverts, and all other stops along the continuum, "We all have our own private cycles." Yep. 

Birthday shout out to my spiritual sister in Kansas, Ms. Pamela. And out to Anna K. in Prescott. Love to you both.