Daybook, v.04
Last week’s dispatches, July 26-August 01
26 July
Sunday. Still hobbling about, though hollering less. I am not a good patient when sick or in pain as I mostly get progressively angry then cry at feeling my body has betrayed me. Good news is Cheri dropped off an abundance of fruit and have been sat at my desk peeling lanzones with my fingers. Absolutely delighted by each burst of sweetness. Now to wait impatiently for the bananas to ripen. In the meantime: mangosteen and kiwis.
27 July
Monday. Thinking about objects that our dead leave behind after last night’s grief workshop. How long we maintain that attachment and is it a denial of someone’s inevitable absence. If I keep this relic of you, does it mean I do not want to be released from my pain? If I build an altar to remember you by, is it to display my capacity to love or to keep you from dissipating into a future where I can no longer picture your face? Grief makes archivists of us all.
28 July
Tuesday. Dark sky rumbling outside. Could smell the rain already. Oh please fall and wash the afternoon clean. I am barefoot with coffee warming my hands, and I wish for more hours of quiet. Need to keep my head down and attend to the small business of getting through the day, Madeleine Peyroux and Oscar Peterson for company.
29 July
Wednesday. I like the idea of writing sonnets as a way of thinking about the world and life. Attended a workshop this morning and my mind is abuzz with voltas, the place made in a poem for the soul to feel sure, how it can manifest as a revelation or a shift in language, a textural change. The poem turns and discovers it has been travelling somewhere else all along. Now wondering about the voltas of my life. Any arbitrary turning along the way.
30 July
Thursday. Breakfast has failed to meet my expectations and now I’m eating a pear. A pear! Forgive me but it is bland and sandpaper on my tongue. The only pears I have ever loved were baked into a pie with raclette and I’m afraid I will never encounter one like it ever again.
31 July
Friday. Can’t sleep. Bothered Tevin with questions well into the wee hours. For example: can I fit into a walnut? Are goats a natural expert in the nutritional value of grass, its taste and texture, and do they discuss where best to graze? Why do I know that Thursdays are yellow and February is purple? Are we meant for each other?
01 August
Saturday. Read and wrote all afternoon, time well spent. Sometimes I forget how to be a person, then I get called to return to language and it’s like taking my shoes off before entering the house. Raining outside. Craving for fruit.
I love how beautifully and how evocatively you write. Thank you for the smile your words brought me this morning.