12:II:78 [before my 30th birthday]
Unbelievable pain, certain Kitty was gonna leave me at last … [early the previous week]
Bodeen phoned, trying to find out over the telephone whether his paste-ups were straight — so I met him at last and am pleased by the poems for the first edition and the way they’re set
Allen McFee on CBC: “And may angels guard your rest” … signing off for the night
Kitty came home on Wednesday as a surprise, took me to Gasperetti’s for dinner with Whiz and Wisteria — his announcing he’s buying a ’77 Porsche ($8,500), trading in the Honda …
Fine Oregon wine: Tualatin, meaning “gentle” or easy, flowing, Vineyards, a white Riesling bottled at Forest Grove …
~*~
30:II
My wife in the process of leaving me: I feel so burdened and so seldom dwell in the realm of spontaneous delight …
In Seattle for the weekend (with Celeste), so was Kitty, in another place. My realization that Celeste doesn’t fulfill me, and there’s some other reason we cannot conjoin — “You’re body shows you’re still confused” …
Spider crab, rock crab, Dungeness crab — Vashon Island, near midnight — the crabs beside starfish (headlight into the water) … boil them, eat at 2 a.m. … Brian / Paul & Judy — Marj stayed home in her robes
A seal that follows Brian fishing …
~*~
26 feb — a long week
Bought LPs in Seattle: Bolet plays Liszt, Eileen Farrell and Max Rudolf, Janacek Sinfonietta (DGG) …
On my drive home, no Kitty in E’burg apartment or her studio nor in Wapato. Learned later we had crossed between E’burg sites, had I stopped at her apartment, would have found her note; instead, not seeing her car when I drove past, I assumed she wasn’t home …
Tuesday, after a hard day at work, an icy bummer phone call from her, her hatred brewing. (Long-distance.) TV mag and farm tab, too, on my end.
Wednesday, Kent told me I had the job but not to tell anyone else yet. Worked OT, elated but still down over Kitty. Went to bed early but couldn’t sleep, watched Georg Solti conduct R. Strauss on PBS …
Thursday, talked to Kitty, told her I’d be up and take her to dinner Friday but then Kent told me we’d be taking our new deskman interviewee to dinner [instead] … went to hear David Wagner read at YVC — older than I expected, white hair … enjoyable reading, though to my ear, flawed: still too prose-like, very little magic. Despite his denials, he remains Midwestern Scots-Presbyterian. He should have gotten lost in Yellowwood Forest, Indiana, rather than by Hoh logging roads (30 minutes, he supposes) … afterwords, with Bodeen and Grimes over three pitchers at Ole’s Tavern (nudes on bathroom walls) … home after midnight …
Half-drunk, drove to E’burg and sleep.
Saturday, breakfast at Adeline’s and then off to art building …
Tender talk, realizing her need to grow yet keeping the marriage alive … off to animal shelter, found a black cat (female, seven months?) … PennZoil — saw a bald eagle sitting in a tree near the Interstate in Selah … parked and watched it … week before I had watched a great blue heron land atop a Doug fir …
Sunday, a lazy morning … made love, showered twice …
The porch, wrapped in clear plastic … the crates of books, her plaster casts for a sculpture, stones collected here and there (turquoise, too), feathers, roped-up shelves, glass canning jars, Grandpa’s sleigh bells, her fabric above the door like a banner, the copper-fish scales she wove.
I dreamed of an art show she’d mount.
~*~
~*~
9 march
Irrepressible sadness, knowledge of losing Kitty — all of her virtues and comforts I love so well, as if I’m suddenly quite old …
Mon-tue nights, I finished part 3 of the poem but can’t get the last section moving … perhaps I should split it …
The red buds on the elm are ready to burst … Belzer with his tractor applying dormant spray …
28 March .. apricots have exploded and petals litter the ground …
Last Thursday no water in the shack … Ivar broke the vein while installing new irrigation line …
Sunday, back from fragrant Seattle … Celeste perturbed by my not being more political — i.e., the Trident demonstrations and her upcoming trial … my necessity for professional neutrality versus moral responsibility … people let evil happen because of their failure to take a stand …
On way back find a note in E’burg, “I’m in Wapato,” and then Kitty in the orchard perturbed by her parents — she had phoned to wish them a happy Easter but let slip she’d gone to Canada, Victoria, with Mark but not by name … and they insisted she not return to school this term … Jeanice ready to fly out the next day. I had to call back, talk her out of it. Then Sam called last night, followed by Vince at 1 a.m. in my deepest of deep sleeps. “Guess who this is.” Moon? Gil? “Your best man.” So he could grill his sister just after he had lost GOP caucus for Wood County prosecutor.
Her dad insisted she not commute and she vacate her apartment. The past two days, a complete stranger to me. Yet if she returned to campus, she could not resist Mark’s invitation for her to move in with him next summer, wherever he establishes his studio nor another’s desire to take her to France this fall …
There are moments I’m ready to throw her out and yet others when I’m taken by how exquisite, soft, sensitive, psychic and nearly perfect she is and how foolish destruction would be …
Before her school vacation, she showed up at the Bushwhacker during our lunch, somehow icy brilliant “cool,” and Whiz observed her cruel side: “What right does she have to come just barging into your life like that?” … with my attempt to curb my emotions after I’d just about staunched the pain … so it would start anew when she’d gone again … she expected me to be angry with her, not kind … and she stayed until Monday, rather than living on the previous Friday morning …
My mother-in-law: You two are more important than college …
Kitty: What rights do I have!
Tomorrow, we go to the Buddhist church for the annual beef sukiyaki dinner.
~*~
6 apr
Letter from Mom noting that Rev. Joel and Sharon had split: she’s remarried, but he has the kids.
Rain in the Valley, snow in the hills …
~*~
Tuesday, 11 April 78
Full doctor’s exam today — Dr. P.H., about my age, younger than I’d thought — an English major at Wooster with Spanish, French, German studies. New practice, no one there but me, an hour and a half ($31 plus $31 lab fee, blood tests) … great relief to know all’s OK. Hearing, blood (cholesterol 190 on an acceptable scale of 150-290). Only blood element out of kilter relates to allergy reaction. No diabetes, eyes still good. Blood pressure 80 over 130. Feel like a stud again. (Only danger is all that coffee.)
~*~
15:IV
Ivar’s frost worries …
Kitty keeps asking what I’m thinking, my answers never satisfy. She wants to be “free” but with me as a friend or lover. Can’t understand why I don’t just up and quit my job, go off to Alaska or New York …
Already cutting asparagus ….
Phyllis phoned, “Wanna go to a concert,” Philadelphia String Quartet (of Seattle) … hold their bows funny — rich, velvety, but no brilliance: not hot in Haydn but great effect in Debussy …
~*~
24 apr
Kitty phoned me at the office Tuesday, she’s vacating her apartment, wanted me to drive up after work but I got mad, partly wondering where everything would go, she destroyed her tree sculpture … back in our place, crowded but cozy … boxes still to uncrate [top of the barn] …
~*~
6 May, Seattle
Kitty flying off to Ohio, Bloomington, and Chicago …
We never see Sea-Tac airport from I-5, which runs under the plateau
~*~
8:V
So mean when I called Sunday night … won’t let me say how much I miss her or love her, tells me to get a girlfriend …
Already the hills turn brown, yellow flowers in Union Gap are gone
The uncommon depth of the desert grass this year means danger: when it dries, flames will be waiting: lightning or careless matches.
Dad phoned to say Aunt Edna had passed away, heart failure. Kitty had visited, leaving a copy of Yakima review. He was going to show Edna the apple poem, but Grandpa did get to hear the piece and was “tickled by the plumbing yard” reference. So now he’s the only one, except maybe Jesse Haines, left of that end of the family. And what will happen to Kenny now?
~*~
21:VI
Ivar and Harold are bidding jointly on a piece of orchard. And Ivar has a bid on another behind Doornick’s, so to speak.
~*~
29:V, Memorial Day
Chinook Pass opened Thursday; came through this morning on my way to Sea-Tac to get Kitty … some packs of snow 20’ high
Washington State Route 410 approaching Chinook Pass on a typical June day once the highway has reopened from its winter closure. Photo taken just south of Lake Tipsoo about 1/2 mile from summit.by Mrhyak at Pexels.
~*~
Missed having Kitty at social functions: Mortons’ party Saturday night, Mtg Sunday night … the emotional support …
~*~
13:VI half-moon
After everything came to a head Sunday, a storm of accusations and truths, we drifted into sex. Kitty was closer to explosion than I’d ever seen her, and the air cleared. Still, no resolution — “I don’t love you, but I respect you.” [If only I could say the same.]
Sez she: “We have no mutual friends. You make no attempt to have friends. … We never go dancing, I’ve never seen you drunk … you’ve done all that, I haven’t … if we went to a bar, you’d criticize the band and the people.”
She’s afraid if she goes back to Central, our marriage will break up …
~*~
Kitty called from E’burg, she’s coming home tonight. Had a fight with Michael, he wanted her to have found the questions so she could examine “her problem,” which she was supposed to do over her Ohio vacation. Told her she expected other people to pick her up and carry her load.
Somehow, she’s really happy for once, and in love with life (and us)
Full moon last night/tonight / summer solstice
~*~
Flash forward to now: Revisiting the previous volume was BRUTAL, especially my conflicts with what I have to admit was my unfaithful wife. Part of her problem, as I finally see, was her failure to commit herself to something beyond the present. Her reason for not having children was not, contrary to her proclaimed concern, about what it might do to her body but rather the reality that it would be a commitment for life, hers and the child’s.
As for me? I sense a Tendrils, beginning with the fact I put the women in my life up on pedestals and worship them, regardless of their flaws. Also, the question of what I would have done without her or some replacement; she was never an “editor’s wife.” As for her value of “having fun,” how futile and infantile that proves …
Looking at what I got out of our weird relationship: time to rise early, meditate, and write intensely … something having children would have greatly limited … also, without her, moving would have been difficult …
~*~
19 july
Just that feeling of treadmill: office, home, cook, clean dishes, to bed and up again too soon, to take off once more … what for?
THIS CAN’T BE IT!
~*~
30 July
Kitty seduced me, or whatever, in my sleep this morning. So long since we’ve done anything. Great way to start the week.
Her folks here Mon night or Tuesday through Friday. The Dolphs took off sailing, left Sam and Jeanice their house — a perfect arrangement. Now the in-laws are off at the Emory’s (Claira), possibly the cabin …
~*~
5 Aug, a Saturday
Kitty’s parents here again … nice, to a point. Right night, everything’s that point.
Good time to sit in the orchard.
~*~
8 Aug, Tuesday
Ivar saying he’d have no qualms about evicting us if Zenny were to become farm manager here. He’s making $3,000 a year running the Olympia blueberry patch.
& now I’m wondering if we should be looking to buy a place in town. I sure don’t want the responsibility but space of our own would be nice.
Came home zonked from work but a dip in the circular pool was refreshing and clarifying …
How difficult it is to be “clear” in “the world” — everything is wrong: use people, profit and efficiency above all else. Deplete materials, savor nothing, run but do not center. Unhappiness is the root of materialism, which it in turn sustains.
How quickly summer’s passed, how little I’ve been out.
The in-laws back here Friday p.m., off for Ohio 5 a.m. Sunday …
The Ala, deal off when the asshole started adding “nickel and dime” like 1/2 mineral rights after he had OK’d the deal …
~*~
And here I thought this was paradise? Parts of it weren’t even a good soap opera.
Let me confess
Keyboarding and then posting these is emotionally difficult, even painful, yet also liberating.
~*~
From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.
