Were we getting into a rhythm for now?
On the home front, here’s how 1997 played out.
~*~
Hate to see Kitty go back to school (she graduated last term) …
My next novel will probably be in Washington state, first person. Only a few characters? Newsroom?
[First mention of a novel now published as Hometown News … much earlier than I remember … what was the premise / plot at that point?]
No water since Saturday night: pipes frozen, despite drip from both faucets.
Monday morning dream: sound of thawing in the pipes, running water, “Hey! Let’s shower!” — all in dreams while cold continues driving deeper into the ground.
15 Jan /
More snow, earth’s frozen two feet deep, most in memory, from two weeks of sub-zero cold … 11 inches of snow in 24 hours last week, third heaviest on record … in meantime, haul water from the washhouse: 60 gallons over the weekend
8 Feb /
Extremely tired. At 34 John Nichols had three novels in print. Me, almost 31, still no books in type. Opportunities further and further away. And spiritual light growing dimmer.
So happy Kitty came home tonight for my 31st birthday. Was going to take her out but came home to find her cooking her first prime rib. Excellent, beautiful meal. Candlelight, good wine. [With a rich Zinfandel, if I recall right A new variety for both of us.] White linen. African violet blooming.
Beautiful clouds tonight. Still no running water in the house.
No TV tonight. Is that why the magic?
31, still no book — what’s happening to the longpoem? And the novel, so difficult, all the odds against its publication.
The Real Work, in Snyder’s view, is not what I’m doing.
11:III /
5 a.m. Friday, gurgling under the house: running water!
JACKRABBIT
HOO-EEE!
So warm today I can sit in my yard while wearing shorts
Ivar’s about on his tractor with dormant spraying
Kitty’s creating a plastic hot-house in the garden: beets, peas, spinach, lettuce.
19:III /
While going to work this morning, [irrigation] water arriving in Sunnyside Canal, half-full.
On my return, full, placid. Like a new river.
Little Netherlands.
24 March / Saturday /
First asparagus shoots by the irrigation canal — enough for dinner for two.
Thursday, first apricot blossoms. Most of Belzer’s grove like kernels of half-cooked popcorn. Today, fully opened.
By early afternoon, we’re sunbathing in our tiny yard.
[Add to my list of “Not Here in New England, Not by Any Means!}
Portland, 3 March ’79 /
Overheard in next booth in restaurant:
Masturbation. “The left hand’s always best.”
[Not in my experience.]
“You know you’re not bored if you’re alone and tell yourself, ‘No, not tonight, I have a headache.’”
Tomatoes and cucumbers with sour cream beside half a cold wild game hen with a Henry Weintraub beer …
Pasta maker, all-metal, $39, sale price, no sales tax.
Too much unbaked happiness around here.
19 April ’79 /
Dreamt the telephone was ringing. I jumped out of bed, waking in time for work. (Dreams that lead to real action.) [Not the first time! As earlier journal entries reveal.]
Earlier, after our cat woke me, wind machines were already making a ruckus. Then looked at the barn, the door was open, meaning Ivar was about. A bit later, the smudge pots in our orchard were blazing. Saw neighbors lighting theirs. Belzer, on an ATV, zipped through his apricots followed by booming hollow explosions each time one cannister lit.
Andy, walking with flames dripping from his flame thrower, leaving steps of fire behind him …
Each cannister burping flames and smoke until settling down into a steady glow of heat …
By sunrise a blue film hangs like a gray tent over the valley’s basin …
Kitty, frustrated: “You don’t talk to me!”
This silence is restless, not solid.
26-27 April /
The apples don’t really blossom until the leaves have opened, so the fullest blooming is hidden by green …
Went to Seattle Saturday a.m.
Visited galleries, Linda Ryan’s show, especially. I photocopied the finished third of the novel [now published as Subway Visions]. Scary, taking IT [the manuscript] so far … I even hate leaving it for the day when I go to work. [Ryan? Not Kitty’s fellow student Johnson?]
[How times have changed! Digital manuscripts are easily backed up to the Cloud or even a thumb drive.]
Ate out, City Loan Pavillion. Drunks arguing, breaking bottles. Crowds leaving for the Kingdome. [Kingdom come.]
Later, seeing Celeste and baby “Cedar Davidita” [middle name after her late father] … everybody sleepy.
How I hate driving around Seattle. Easty to get lost, one-way streets, even knowing where I want to go. Barriers in my way. (Over the bridge, turn around, can’t get back: the draw’s up.)
~*~
Today with Kitty, the third annual Art Folks vs Music Folks Hoyt Axton Slow-Pitch Game, her college circle picnic beside the Yakima River, where I’m off alone, listening to the beautiful flowing. Just finished Joan Didion’s A Book of Common Prayer, a masterpiece. [Forty-five years later, I remember nothing.]
Kitty ran over a snake just before we got to the picnic amid a few scattered long-needle pines. Shrieks from the game.
Two days she’s been a bitch: that time of the month again.
She wonders how I can stand her.
A lovely morning abed possible only because Meeting’s tonight, at the Truebloods.
Summer, and I should be hiking.
Waiting in the Burlington Northern depot (surprise, it was open) 4:14 a.m. with train scheduled for 4 a.m. arrival now expected around 5:30. Empire Builder. Half-wondering, why’s Nancy Scott coming? [Who?]
Maybe this jolt will get me back on the early-morning track but the evenings have been so nice.
3 rattlesnakes killed on the hill ranch. “Don’t tell anybody or we can’t get anyone to work there.”
“Thought rattlesnakes didn’t like the wet orchards.”
“It’s so dry, they’re coming down for water.”
Bismarck Peak from Mount Aix by Ron Clausen via Wikimedia Commons.
Did I climb either of them? Perhaps. My journals didn’t include everything.
~*~
3:VIII:79 — Friday /
Fifth anniversary — that long?
“Do you love me?”
Slept “late” last two days, meaning I didn’t rise early enough to meditate before dashing off to the office.
Zenny over Wednesday night, and then both Zennys and Dolphs up for dinner last night.
Me, to dentist for cleaning. What’s that — a sharp metal probe! An unexpected jolt: pain! The water rinse stings. Blue eyes, the dental technician. What am I supposed to be doing in this chair? Swami! What do you think about?
Two upper wisdom teeth must come out. Sometime. Meaning soon?
Yesterday, my allergies so bad I left work early. Tonight, I left early to pick up Kitty after the VW’s clutch cable gave out: she drove to town in second gear.
14:VIII:79 / Tuesday morn /
Roza [water district] went “cloud seeding” yesterday, folks with junior rights canals out-back. With the first clouds in two months and some strangely hazy air. At 10 we felt a slight drop here or there. By midnight, rain — a slow, steady rain till dawn.
1 September /
Breakfast at Adeline’s, E’burg, open 5:30 a.m. for the rodeo crowd.
“Is the parade today or tomorrow?”
“Today, 10 a.m.”
“Sounds like a good time to sleep in.”
In Seattle, the NW Photocopy Center
COLOR CONTROL
“the Jewish question”
while fussing with his master copy
“Hey, man! There’s a place for guys like you. It’s called the Soviet Union.”
WHITE PICKER
“I’m just an old tramp”
Look the other way, there’s always a garden. Say Daikotoji, Tokyo Zendo.
~*~
From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.
