The beginning of wisdom, as the Chinese say, is calling things by their right names. (E. O. Wilson, as cited by Elizabeth J. Rosenthal, Birdwatcher: The Life of Roger Tory Peterson)

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Testing the Repair

January 27, 2010.  Wednesday.
Situation:  Have to leave for work around 4, take Mwayla for walk about 3.  Chance to try out my boots with the rubber cement bulging out on them.
State of the Path:  No sooner am I walking into the walled garden than I realize there’s a crack in one of the boots that Moi missed cementing up.  Walk as much as I can into the weeds, although it’s hard to do (and probably hard on the boots) where there are jaggers sticking up.  Water still trickling in streams through the maples down by the wigwam; still hear water being sucked into the hole.
State of the Creek:  The water behind the log and barrel jam doesn’t seem as deep as yesterday.  Cow piss foam against one of the logs.
The Fetch:   When I get up to the clearing, Mway is not there.   I have to call out, “Mway!  Mway!”  I see her form running through the back yard.  I wait a minute, then see her coming down the path.   Five fetches, and she rushes off.  When we get into the house, I understand what’s been up.  Alma is here for her lesson.  Mway rushes around, gets her treat.  I point out to Moi the crack in one of the boots.  Then as Mway passes us to go upstairs, Moi yells “She’s all wet and filthy.  Close the bed room door,” and I have to race Mway up the steps, pulling her back by the hair, to get to the door first.

2 comments:

sisyphus gregor said...

I’m sorry to have gotten so melodramatic last night. But there are notions of writing without revision: the Dadaist hat trick, the Surrealists’ automatic writing, Kerouac’s spontaneous prose. Akin to jazz improvisation. Robert Creeley’s novel, The Island, was written, I understand, without revision. But maybe the germane point is: does a diarist (or a blogger) revise?

Anonymous said...

Joyce took 11 years to write about June 16, 1904, another 17 years to write about the night time of the following day. He died in middle age of an ulcer, poor, in the midst of air raid alerts, forsaken by many friends, his family life in near shambles, all for the sake of a “rag of wolf’s tongue redpanting from his jaws.” (I quote from memory, so excuse any inaccuracies.) M.