This is our outdoor summer market, not the indoor one. Just liked looking at the green grass.
Saturday: The Farmer’s Market is to open downstairs today, but I’m not going. I’m concerned about infection—no way to stay six feet away from other people—and also I’m in quarantine. I went to the doctor for my “wellness” visit and got a note through the portal two days later that someone at the facility had tested positive for Covid. So, 14 days in an ankle shackle for me. Simultaneously, Jerry has gotten shingles. We both had the earlier, barely effective, shots, but not the new ones yet. He’s miserable, one eye swollen almost shut, and pains shooting through one side of his head.
Monday: I started this post before the sea-change. Before we knew Biden had won. Skies are brightening. A weight is lifting. The tension in my shoulders is beginning to relax, although it will take a while for the knowledge to sink into my bones. It’s been wonderful to see the democratic process work. Of course it’s messy, and who knows, ever, what will happen next. But—and you’ve heard this already—as Biden’s favorite poem, “The Cure at Troy,” by Seamus Heaney, says: “History says, don’t hope / On this side of the grave / But then, once in a lifetime / The longed-for tidal wave / Of justice can rise up / And hope and history rhyme.”
Tuesday: Oh dear. It looks like the transition isn’t going to go smoothly. Good lord, did I think it would? There was one day of feeling great. One day. I think I remember being taught that the devil is the author of confusion. Probably so, in some sense. Nothing to do now but suffer an anguished watching as the truth is distorted and confused. And trust in the truth.
I’ve been reading (or, reading at) Louise Glück’s collection of essays on poetry, American Originality. In one essay, she tries to separate the writing of suffering from writing that displays a narcissistic absorption in suffering. You know the difference. Someone is telling you about their suffering, and you are either deeply engaged and empathetic or you can’t wait to get away from there. In the latter, you feel the teller’s great need for you to support their fragile ego as the Sufferer. The difference is in perspective. In the former, there is awareness that this suffering is not the exclusive property of the sufferer, but joined with the entire human condition. In that sense, there’s movement outward.
The festering boils in our country and in the world are breaking open, for sure. It hurts. They’re red and puffy. Some are dying of them. Meanwhile, there are those doing the work, cleansing the wounds. Doing the work.
At last I went for my characteristic long walk yesterday, my plantar fasciitis (that, too) having improved a lot. I like the piles of leaves crunching and blowing. I like the trees shed of their glory, become proud skeleton of themselves, drawn down inside against the coming cold. I like the way everything fits together. Because it’s truly not separate. I was thinking as I walked, “This is my lifetime. It will soon be over, but it is here, now, and it is so very interesting!”
I have sort of gotten back to work. I haven’t written anything much in a while. I’ve been watching my phone incessantly, reading so much news there’s not much else in my head. Time to kick more leaves.