ave atque vale

If I don't blog now before I leave here I'll probably lose this day.  I'm reluctant to go, but I've always had difficulty breaking off one activity to begin another.  I take a long time to go to bed, to stop reading, talking, sitting, gazing into space, whatever. I guess that's one symptom of my procrastination virus. Then too, consider what I'm doing: leaving the peace and solitude of myself, plunging back into the imperatives of the world.  Try as I will to hang onto the peace, it ebbs, and so do I.  "Give me my scallop shell of quiet.."

I didn't finish my book, as I had hoped.  There was more polishing and correcting to do than I expected.  I've been with it for so long, I have to be careful.  There used to be a regular footer in the New Yorker - "Our Forgetful Authors" - in which inaccuracies were cited from the same book, things like forgetting the colour of a character's hair, giving the same information twice, losing track of the date or time or weather.  I think computers compound these errors.  Cut-and-paste jobs are so easy , and so hard to catch and delete.  That's why God invented copy editors. 

With these dreary thoughts, I'll wend (nice word) my way home. 

 

re-entry

It's almost time. Not yet but it's coming.  I have to go home tomorrow, and the tramlines are starting to fill.  I haven't made a list all week, no noodges or nags or reminders of cheques to write, people to call, errands to run.  I like that but I'm not so sure  that it's a good thing.  All those fiddlies anchor us (me) in reality.  Oh, dear, block those metaphors! I'm ranging from street vehicles to ships, tramlines to anchors. Well, bear with me.  Are you still there?  These past few lines illustrate what I intended to say this morning, something about the pretension of a writer, that no good thought shall go unpublished. Blogs are a terrible indulgence and an irresistible temptation. I write, therefore I am.  Stop it. Time enough tomorrow, when I go home.  Right now I'm going to swim.