one thing today

This is ecstasy, and behind the ecstasy is something else, which is hard to explain. It is like a momentary vacuum into which rushes all that I love. A sense of oneness with sun and stone. A thrill of gratitude to whom it may concern - to the contrapuntal genius of human fate or to tender ghosts humoring a lucky mortal.

  was moving too close to a summertime Sunday afternoon blueish kinda too familiar mood yesterday and took a walk and overheard a guy in the park explain to his younger pal that all city women are complicated. then, a really young kid played Glory Days on his guitar and then counted his applause. and then, I watched about a hundred dancers in Washington Square carry on thanks to Chaka Kahn singing about somebody called Ain't Nobody. 

  ... therefore I am. I am not sure that is true. lately I have contemplated the need to share - thoughts, words, plans, doubts, news. those kind of things. why? I am not sure there is a need to do that and therefore, I am not sure how I feel about continuing this blog. I get so little feedback from you who read it. say hello once in a while. let me know how you're feeling, doing. or not. which goes back to the question about needing the need share stuff ... like what Nabakov thinks about butterflies while I think about whether I spell his name correctly. or how long Terri Garr has been dead, what the temperature is, how many hours I slept last night, mules. see what I mean? about the need - or not- to share.  time will tell.  as always.  just writin'.

  Agnes Martins signature style was defined by an emphasis upon line, grids, and fields of extremely subtle color. Her paintings are covered in dense, minute and softly delineated graphite grids. They retained small flaws and unmistakable traces of the artist's hand. She favored the personal and spiritual. Her paintings, statements, and influential writings often reflected an interest in Eastern philosophy

 ... paintings are really beautiful in person. Their size and the exactitude. What's most intriguing to me about them is the WHY of them. Why did she make them? What made her spend the time drawing her lines over and over again. I will do some homework and report on them tomorrow. 

Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed all together, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.                                                                                                                                      -                                                                     ...

the air and breeze this morning takes me back to the summer before I left for college and everything seemed unknown and possible and full of good, pending surprise. the world was easier to live in and youthful courage was mine to be had.  we had firm bodies and minds that still needed shaping. we had music in our ears and plans for after supper. greens were greens and mouths were mouths. most everything was so much more as they were than now. a cow was a cow. a horn blasted pure. this and that fell into place and stayed there for a time. what a time was a time- that summer and that breeze so near and clear and dear.

  I’ve loved the Post front pages for 50 years. Back in the day, my good friend Michael and I enjoyed them like crazy. Today the headline is Dr NO with a picture of Dr Fauci at his Senate hearing yesterday where he pleaded the 5th more than a hundred times. He wouldn’t even say what color his tie was. I am ashamed to say - it even made me wonder and it definitely wasn’t a good look. Perception is all. Unfortunately. He's a good, formidible  man that didn't look like one yesterday.

  Out on some borderline Some mark of inbetween I lay down golden in time And woke up vanishing Sweet bird you are Briefer than a falling star All these vain promises on beauty jars Somewhere with your wings on time You must be laughing Behind our eyes Calendars of our lives Circled with compromise Sweet bird of time and change You must be laughing Up on your feathers laughing Golden in time Cities under the sand Power ideals and beauty Fading in everyone's hand Give me some time I feel like I'm losing mine Out here on this horizon line With the earth spinning And the sky forever rushing No one knows They can never get that close Guesses at most Guesses based on what each set of time and change is touching Guesses based on what each set of time and change is touching Guesses based on what each set of time and change is touching                                       ...

The ghost of another comes to visit and we hold communion while the light shines. While the light shines, what else can we do? And who doesn’t have one foot in the grave? I notice how the trees seem shaggy with leaves and the steam of insects engulfs them. The light falls like an anchor through the branches. And which one of us is not being pulled down constantly? My mind floats in the purple air of my skull. I see myself dancing. I smile at everybody. Slowly I dance out of the burning house of my head. And who isn’t borne again and again into heaven?   Mark Strand

  7/22  Dream … Manny and I at our wedding rehearsal … the guests already gathered … many of whom I don’t know …  I am crazily relaxed and sure about what I am about to do  Oprah … exploring what you want makes u intimate w/yr nature … BRYDCLIFFE 2018 

 I'm scheduled to enter the Army on Wednesday. I will not go and wonder what will happen to me. I am with a Latina girl. She doesn't like to spend time with me. I tell her it's over. She cries and stands next to her old boyfriend. I ask her - why are you crying, you don't even like to spend time with me. And her old bf seems very cool and nice. Go with him , I tell her.  My parents are off to play some rounds of golf. I want to sleep all day alone in the house. Single once more. I am barefoot and have to leave work and am self conscious about my shoelessness. A work colleague shows up. We take the same route home and I don't want to travel with him.

    Anguish comes in many forms.  Not sad exactly.  Has some regret in it.  Surprise. Disappointment. Leaving.  Music, maybe a clarinet screeching.  Beseechment.  Humility knocks.  And uncertainty, but, then again. No.  There must be air and light and motion.  Movement through space and time.  Forwardness.  Sadness I support.  Part of it all, that’s all.  But music. 

 

  ... it's clear to me. Good character is about making others feel heard, known, appreciated, welcome, warm, enjoyable. Listen, inquire, encourage. It can be cultivated but you gotta have the initial awareness of the requirement to improve, enhance, increase. It takes desire and time and a willingness to be invested, consistent, persistent. It gets easier to understand. It gets harder to do.

Ain't it grand how the small things we love give us big pleasure. I bought this beautiful box in Paris maybe 50 years ago. I paid 40 dollars for it. It's Florentine leather which gets  better with age.   It is a full-grain Italian vacchetta  tanned with tree bark extracts. It has deep, wide corner grooves. It's a great thing to rub.  I don't know where I found this cool pencil sharpener. It makes my number 2s sharp and ready for action. And again, it's a good rub. The shavings are pretty, too. 

Its  8 in the morning.  I go to the deli for coffee and see Marcos .  Me: Somethings different about you. What is it?  M: I shaved. ME: You look ten years younger.  M: I don't like it.  ME: You don't like looking ten years younger?  M: No.  ME: How come?  M: I don't know.  Me: And you hair looks really good, too.  M: Well, sure. The hair's always been beautiful. I walk through the Village. It looks like it's in Technicolor. I take a pic of two proud griffins - aren't they all.  I go down to the river to move. I think about my convo with sister Suzie yesterday. She asked me - notice anything different about me on this call. I tell her - you seem, peaceful, calm, a good mile per hour. She says - I haven't interrupted you. I say - oh, right . My beautiful sis changes. Gets better. Few people do.  I get a text from Lynda. Jay had a heart attack in Boston.  I talk to Sharkey. He thinks homelessness should be illegal. I do ...

David is the best super in new york city and lucky me, he's mine.  This week, he turned a closet in my foyer into a book shelf. Flawless. He underestimates his worth. I told him I'll pay him twice what he asked for. He said   - I'll take it . I told him he's gotta know his worth. People pay for his time and and labor and talent. I paid him yesterday morning and included a good tip. I said - let's do more soon . He said - Yeah. Break something. 

I was going to write about how stupid it was that all these friends sent a friend of ours prayers for his daughter to come thru brain surgery - like God has to have a   dozen more "likes" to see to it that she comes thru alive. But instead, I'll note how beautiful the sun plops on my table as I finish a painting of the oldest house on Fire Island and listen to Samuel Barbers Adagio for Strings.  

David Sedaris was asked if he could go back and repeat a moment - what would it be. He described a Fall afternoon when he was in his early 20s and he brought his sisters record player out into the backyard and raked leaves while listening to Phoebe Snows first album.   Mine would be a Thanksgiving at Pattys house - probably '77 or '78. As usual, her parents were away and Don is with us and he's very relaxed and reading a newspaper in the den. I think it felt so special because it was a merging of my past in her home - stoned summers listening to music with my friends and talking about what our futures were going to be - and having D there now - my new life. Here.