Just as I manage to unpack a suitcase, it's time to fill another. The sun at this angle: the little white steeple above our rooftops is almost flamingo pink for a minute or two. But now the full yellow sunrise and the busy trucks on Seminary Street with their red tail lights flashing by the stop sign. Everywhere the houses let off steam.
***
Is there time for one last visit to the priory, one last class session? Tuesday morning routine: bathe, dress, get in the car, drive. The last time I attended Brother John-Luke's "Philosophy of Living Being," I realized I'd missed enough class, at last, to be lost. Well, I vowed to read more Aristotle, to catch up. Well, and I didn't, did I.
***
I know I've been out of the loop, but fill me in, won't you? I miss you. I'm trying to catch up with your archives. And what the heck happened at Jordan's place? He seems to have disappeared... If I owe you email don't look for it yet. That corner of my universe is like a ten-car pile-up collision. One has to look for survivors, first. But you know, call. Or else you might get a phone call from me at not such a good time: sorry, C, for calling so late last night. It was not so late in my state. I just wanted to say I'm thinking of you.
***
Bathtub. Priory.
***
"Art is a very high form of love--and only a higher love can possess a lower one."
***
Herman has left the house for Chicago, Ann Arbor, and Ithaca, finally, before the MLA Convention, which, we all know and loathe, is just after Christmas and just before New Year's Day. My friend shared my house these months since summer, and we made it ours, and we wrote books together and watched tv and had long talks about everything--especially other people--and now that the house is solely mine again, I am far too empty for it. Wish my friend a safe journey home. Wish him serenity of mind, too, while he makes his interviews and campus visits. He will have some hard decisions. So wish him the right one.
As he always says: "the universe is a perfect place." I'm not sure if that's the same as saying: "we live in the best of all possible worlds." I don't think it is.
***
