As I Was Saying To Joan Didion...

Joan Didion is a writer. She understands reality by writing. If she is not writing, she is merely going through the motions, or at least that is how I understand her. Where did the month of May go? I did not write here for almost the entire month. If a month goes by and one does not write, did one actually exist during that interval. Or was one merely going through the motions; inhaling, exhaling, ingesting...and so on. This year is so long and so short, so interminable and so quick. On March 9, my 86 year old father had surgery for an abdominal aneurysm. My parents live 60 miles from myself, and I live 8 minutes from the hospital. My mother was invited to bring her cat and stay with us, but she insisted my wife go North and cat sit, while she would spend a night with me at our place. There was a good deal here, but I do not feel like writing about it now. My father is doing great. He is gardening and living with all the gusto he used to. By the beginning of April, my brother experienced a collapsed lung. He lives in the same city as do my parents, Port Desespoir of infamy - the sort of a place you'd expect Beau Geste to turn up in after leaving the Foreign Legion. Closer to reality, it is the kind of wonderful place where you'd expect to run into Sebastian's Kurt in a bar...or tattoo parlor. One day my parents said something along the lines, oh, by the way, we saw your brother Monday. He can't breath. So after he had allowed 1 week for the lung to heal itself, I took him to the ER of the local Hotel Dieu on Sunday. He's better. I suspicion that he is back on the nicotine rag, however. ( not the nicest turn of phrase...sorry.) Let's see...what else? Taxes. Imus. Iraq. I have started to write out the stories of Zakaria Tamir to aid my study of Arabic. My favorite writers are Tamir, Amos Tutuola, Kazantzakis, Anais Nin, Avivah Zornberg...these are the ones that insinuate themselves into my being in alarming and private ways that exceeds the allotment of access to the soul normally extended to writers. Did I ever tell you that I can not read Anne Rice? I tried 3 times, and I can not force myself to read her writing. What I mean, I guess, is that my eyes rebel from the printed paper. It is not the imagery or stories, it is the brute phalanx of the letters in black upon the white, desdemona-like page that becomes decimate...and I can not go on. I have the same problem with Danielle Steele. Odd. Anyway, I shall write a tad more now. I sense things are better. After a long journey, you step down from the train. You say what a strange country this is in which I find myself...then you smile.