Sheena and I (May Day, 2019) Two years after retirement she finds this five-year-old journal entry —Sept 5, 2015: the serendipity of today Such a beautiful first class day. Two courses began - and I returned home to pass out in a deeply pleasurable nap of sheer exhaustion at how intense these initial encounters can… Continue reading Pandemic Journal 11/1/21: a retiree remembers classrooms students hallways colleagues gardens mentors
Category: aging
Pandemic Journal 9/1/2022: Excision
Today the surgeon Dr. Mary Stephens dug with some determination into the sweet spot where the temple arteries run on the right side of my face directly in front of my ear. The arteries were delicate and elusive and it seems to have taken longer than usual to extract a piece of the artery to examine. A delicate specimen that indicated success in her handiwork. During the hour I was wide awake on the pillow, I turned my head on its side. In my ear throughout the procedure I hear a clanging and squishing and the inaudible gestures of a surgeon's blade. I resort to pranayama yoga breathing in my mind and in my mouth and in my lungs. The discipline calms me as a I think how this day surgery is definitely a very good strategy for torture movie scripts. Excruciating begins to encompass it.
Pandemic Journal 23 May, 2021 — When a long grey hair falls on your keyboard…
Pandemic Journal 24/3/2020 — a time travelling walk after dawn…
24 March 2020 Dear Pandemic Reader,Shall we let the calendar blur into a whirl of days? Dress up at night for our dreams? Sleep like perambulating beauties outfitted in day wear? Love, In social isolation for who knows how long? I confess... I long for the touch of a friend, the hug of a child… Continue reading Pandemic Journal 24/3/2020 — a time travelling walk after dawn…
Split
Two things are happening simultaneously. A propellor whirls. My being is moving in two directions. My body is twinned in two places at once. The present tense and my long ago past collide every morning. I am in 2020 Oaxaca City, Mexico City. And in my great grandmother’s nineteenth-century English home.