2008-09-11

On this anniversary of 9-11-2001, the redbud leaves outside my office window have started to turn their lovely fall purple and along the lanes, all the tulip poplar leaves are yellowing and falling. We are officially into autumn! I welcome the change, although I will miss knocking around in tee shirts and flip flops! Here comes the season of socks and sweaters!

After Morning Offering Mick and Gary took on all of the Thursday and Friday mowing jobs, since heavy rain is predicted for tomorrow. They came home triumphant at 3:00 or so. Mick did his weekly maintenance on all his equipment and then reworked a strip of our front yard along the driveway which the sewer guys had left hilly and rough. By bath time he had it all reworked, tilled, raked, resown with grass seed and as he replaced the border stones for the driveway, he dug them in flush. They had been a bit tilted because of the swell of ground where the trench went through. It’s a vast improvement for that small area!

Meanwhile, Gary shopped for next week’s recipes. Then he cooked all of the food on the menu, including a wonderful, warmly spiced tomato sauce which is for a rice dish. Since I cannot eat rice, I asked Gary to hold out some of the sauce for me to use over potatoes next week.

Gary was also kind enough to create Mel’s birthday cake for me. He made a strawberry cake with strawberry icing in heart-shaped pans. I found some writing gel and candles, and now we have her cake waiting for her! I so look forward to giving her a good birthday tomorrow when she comes down to town from Avalon.

I was able to devote my day to working with Dana Redfield’s Alphabet Mosaics material. There is more to this editing job than I thought at first. She has tons of odd names listed in her acknowledgments and in her Preface. I will need to check the spelling on them. Also, she did not footnote references, so I started on that today.

It is interesting to me that any project one takes up creates a small but full universe inside my head. There is nothing linear about editing, any more than there is about writing. The project has a round shape and contains a world of complexity. I think editing is at least as much a matter of intuition and insight as it is the logical processes of correcting copy errors and adjusting formatting. My hope is to produce a finished text from which the errors and non sequiturs are removed but which still sounds exactly like Dana. Editing is an art, not a science.

I spent the last of my work day reading through some material Elihu sent me concerning the line-up of candidates for the presidential election. It stacks up as Republicans = empire thinking, Democrats = a desire to return to less aggressive policies. It is hard for me to believe that the pundits still feel the two parties are in a dead heat. Even Mick’s Mom, a Nebraskan Republican, says she is voting for Obama. I feel more engaged in the outcome of this election than I have for many years. That’s why we have a “Vote for Obama” sign in our yard!

Gary joined Mick and me for a late supper and the Gaia Meditation, at which Mick offered a particularly lovely prayer for the planet and its people.