June 10, 2004

10:33 p.m.

Mainly, the Jasmine

...is blooming in my front window, this one that has been nearly killed at least three times when my plant overseer forgot to water it enough in my absence. It's come back each time, scraggly, smaller-leaved, but still blooms every few weeks and smells heavenly. I promised it I'd do everything to make it live. Someday I hope it'll look lush and dark as it did when I first bought it. Anyway its fragrance hasn't suffered, and from about ten feet away it keeps wafting sensuous thoughts over to me, like, "Summer," and "The Smell of Rain," and "The Promise of Love." Kind of makes me not know what else to write about.

I visited friend Joan; I picked up the dry cleaning. I walked around the frog pond. I thought of Will.

I made years-overdue appointments for physical checkups, a mammogram. I was surprised at how good it felt to have booked them. It might be the closet hypochondriac in me that just wants reassurance that something hidden isn't wrong with me. It may just be the letting go of guilt for not having HAD a checkup in about five years.

Tomorrow is Swan Day in Boston, with Dar. In fact the next three days, in Carol's absence, will be like vacation. Then back to gigging and rehearsal, and I have to start going through all my files and clothing and miscellany here, and weeding out. Joan said she'd love to have my old scanner, so that's one less thing. I wonder how Carol is doing with her folks in NJ, going through the household goods. They've lived there since before Carol was adopted, and she's 45 like me. How can you live in one house for 50 years? How can you leave it, then?

I observe my impatience to see Will again, watch it romp around the yard like a little black dog. I allow my focus to go soft, let go of my hold on ought and must. I try to stop hauling on the rope that brings the future into the now, faster, faster. I'm aware of my chest, my heart. The air coming into me, going out. Mainly, the jasmine.