August 09, 2005

12:10 a.m.

Walking in Fly Season

I am my own slave on these walks,
fanning my head with two large ferns
so the infidels won't get me.
Their swoops and dives keep me on edge, although

I'm mainly thinking about
a Bulgarian folk tale in eleven-sixteen meter
that rises and falls in time with my stepping.
My head is full of a strange melody.

Originally in four parts, I'm trimming it
down to three, faithful to the breathless crescendos
and modal, mountain harmonies
that bespeak peasant girls in bright aprons

who probably milk goats at dawn, and eat
bread from coarse, nutty flour.
The flies' harsh drones send me sprinting
and waving my ferns like Pharaoh's servant

as I relive Dragana, outsinging the nightingale.
The flies and I sing each our separate song
but dance together, while somewhere
a peasant girl swats at the air
with her handkerchief.

Saturday, August 6th

It simply does not seem possible, and certainly is not reasonable, that this is our last, originally planned, full day here in Maine. So we've decided to stay an extra night and go back Monday. It's been a beautiful, productive trip, although there is a hint of something here that is like Fall. I don't mean the weather; rather I'm referring to the future of the house. I've mentioned before that Chris's dad built this house, which started out as a 12' x 12' room, as a retirement place. It slowly grew into a "castle in cabin's clothes." He died some years ago, and Chris's mom lived here as long as she could on her own; but it's remote, and she is elderly, and the time came when she moved down south to one of the daughters'. But many of her things, as well as her husband's things, are still here, as though they've gone fishing for a couple of days and will be back soon to put on the jacket and apply the perfume and dust off the tea set for guests. In truth I think we've been the only visitors in the last two years. One brother is in Chicago, both daughters are in the Carolinas and we are the closest at about five hours away. It's a shame; the house is lonely, except for some mice and about four thousand spiders. We come in, we clean, we cook; we watch movies and write a lot of music, and give it as much love as we can in four or five day intervals. But the three children, who jointly own the property now, are still negotiating about what to do with it when their mom dies.

Carol urges them to think of their retirements, which are not so far off, and would give them all the time to come up here and vacation. Chris is the only one who really wants to keep the place, and even so, he realizes it is quirky and would need perhaps an addition, another bathroom and bedroom (there is only one of each, and we spread ourselves in creative ways. I sleep in what once was a little dining room, on my airbed) -- and in any case there is so much repair needed now, it's a little daunting. In the five days that Chris has been up here, he has worked from waking til well after dark on house projects. He's waterproofed the deck and picnic table, replaced the railing and deck stairs, made new screens, cleaned out the incredibly junky basement, and probably a few things I don't know about. There are leaks; there are mice gnawing away at the styrofoam insulation between the walls, and we hear them at night sometimes. We haven't seen any evidence inside the house, this trip.

They wonder who would buy a house like this. It's odd; the door to the back deck, for example, is about two feet wide. The kitchen is not really a room, just an incidental passageway between the breezeway and the living room. The existing bathroom is tiny, and everything has the air of a man who loved to make things himself instead of buying them. Things that mean a lot to his family, but might not satisfy a potential buyer. Still, the acreage is sweet and private, so the property is desirable -- even though the trees in back are too tall now to see the mountains any more. But the thought of someone coming in and tearing down the house to rebuild is sad. Not after all that work and life, and the care and whimsy Chris's dad took in "inventing" the house as it suited him in the moment.

So Chris does what he can to keep the place alive for now. We may be here in the house's Autumn, and I'm trying to be grateful for every moment. It's tempting to throw out the perfumes that are probably 20 years old, or just use up the souvenir soaps, or ditch the old, slightly browned potholder... but they're not my things, and there's something irreverent about making assumptions regarding somebody else's things -- even if they're never coming back.

This year is different in another way, too. Last year I had all these brokenhearted (and some scathingly witty) songs about Will to complete, and I was working through all that. This year I have no folder of lyrics, no story I'm dying to tell, but rather a few consuming a cappella projects that aren't original compositions. Notation is slow and laborious for me, but satisfying too, and I've completed a gorgeous Bulgarian folksong arrangement and another English traditional piece for our three voices. We'll try them out in earnest later today and see if they need any tweaking, but I'm confident they're done. Carol has also written a new song, which is beautiful, and she's very proud of it, coming off a long writer's block.

Last night after dark we sat in the unlit breezeway, which has two large windows looking to the back. The outside flood was on, and we watched a bat dip in and out of the crowd of moths and insects hovering near the light.

I think it's time for a nap now.

Sunday

It's gonna be a skoht-chah, as they might say up here. I woke up at about a quarter past seven and went for a wee walk, finding a walking trail that a neighbor had told Chris about yesterday. It wasn't long, and my sneakers aren't very good for woods walking anyway, but it was pretty and woodsy and came out near the little pond behind the house here. It's usually dry by this time in summer, but there is still a good frog and weed habitat, owing to a lot of summer rain. Chris's dad put his and hers big flat rocks by the pond so they could watch the dragonflies and the homemade birdhouse he put down there. So I sat a bit on one of them -- whether his or hers I couldn't tell -- and contemplated the swarms of bugs and the rising sun which promised, already, to be a skohtchah.

I usually rise early here and have a little quiet time before my mates begin to stir, but this trip it's been hard. I went for an early run the first morning, but since then I've just been tired. I even took a long, late nap yesterday, and had one of those dreams where I heard an old song of mine on a '45, which I'd completely forgotten about, and was very excited about relearning because it was good. But there was all sorts of trouble trying to play it again so I could write it down, of course, and I never got to hear it twice. I awoke with that sinking, sleepy dismay that comes between dreaming and daylight, as if I'd lost something precious here in the waking world.

But last night, or rather early this morning, I had a dream that made up for it. It was made known to me that I had been given three gifts of language, one of which in particular being that all the letters (words) and all the musical notes were available to me at all times, and this was specifically from the days of my last band (in the mid 90's). Another gift of language was given to me for this band, and I'm not sure what the third one was from (maybe childhood), but my attention was drawn specifically to the gift I'd been given in the last band. It's interesting that the old song I'd heard in yesterday's dream was from an earlier period, too, like when I was gigging solo.

AND, I had maybe the 50th dream of having longer hair again. I tried to grow it earlier this year but I just couldn't stand how stupid it looked so I cut it again. I still don't know whether it's a metaphor for something else -- feminine power? beauty of some sort? wisdom?? -- or whether I simply want longer hair. But I have a different strategy this time for growing it, so we'll see how long I can last. When I went for a mammogram last week, I looked at a booklet in the waiting room that advertised hats and turban thingies for people on chemo, and some of them were really pretty and fetching. Even cool. Maybe I could just cover my raggedness until it's long enough to cut into a better style.

Or maybe I'll just say, fuck it, and not care whom I displease (nevermind that it's mainly me anyway) with my unkempt ways, and walk around instead like a boheme, a chunky volume of poetry under my arm and a faraway look in my eyes. I'm reading a fabulous book by the current poet laureate, Ted Kooser, called The Poetry Home Repair Manual, which for anyone who has taken Poetry 101 is probably full of repetition, but I'm finding it so useful and engrossing. I like his picture, too; he's in his 70's, a visiting professor at the U. of Nebraska-Lincoln, and appears in a bulky cable-knit sweater with a coffee cup in his hand, in front of what looks like a shed with old iron implements nailed up behind. He looks like he was wonderfully nerdy growing up, with a little round face, protruding ears and a very domed forehead. But his thin-lipped smile is contented, even amused, and it touches me that this unassuming-looking, retired insurance executive is the top celebrated poet in this country right now. I'd like to drive out to Nebraska and look him up. Maybe sit with a cup of coffee and discuss how best to deviate from established form, how to grow my hair, whether to layer it in the comforting rhythm of iambs or syllabically blunt-cut it, where every line ends at the same place. It seems to me that, if anyone would know these things, it would be he.

Meanwhile, in opening to the back flap, I found some notes I'd jotted in the laundromat last Tuesday when a young woman, probably a student, came in all in a rush and started telling me all about her day. I'm working on a poem about it.

Later

Somehow, the time has passed. I didn't do much today that was productive; took a nap, wrote a little, read, and practiced the new arrangements with the band. Had a couple of walks. I'll try to leave earlyish tomorrow. Carol had the idea that maybe I could come up here in two weeks when we have some more time off, but by myself; Chris has to ask his mum, who's really still in charge of the house, so I don't know what she'll say. He spoke to her tonight by phone and she isn't feeling great right now; he thinks she misses the house and feels very nostalgic for it, especially hearing about all the repairs he's been doing. She really doesn't know me at all, so I may be too much of a stranger for her to feel comfortable having me visit her old homestead alone. That's okay. I can go on home retreat, too. And, I won't have to move my dental appointment.

But it's alluring, to be here, and I don't want to leave tomorrow. It's a way to escape from money worries and the next bill that's in the mailbox. I know it'll be good to get home. But too much time off also will make it very hard to go out and gig again, this coming weekend. At this point we're painfully under-rehearsed, and Carol still hasn't gotten her whole voice back.

Wee hours of Tuesday morning

Good as always to get back, though I really wanted to pitch my tent in the living room and I can't find it. I must have tucked it in the eaves at Rose's house. I'll look for it tomorrow.

I had dinner with Mike tonight, though; Rose is still in Africa, and he's on his ones for the week. We were both sleepy and sluggish, although the pets amused us a lot. They've (Mike and Rose, not the pets) put in a waterfall and goldfish pond outside the new screened porch, and it's lovely and lulling to watch.

To bed with me, then.