Recently

Lady Diana maybe tomorrow. Can't catch up on mail until Sunday. New show opens tomorrow night. Doings. From hermit to gadabout. Amazing week, not quite the event of 2003 (I was without power and phone for 7 weeks) but a significant adventure. Power out Tuesday a week ago, right after I posted, Wednesday morning surreal, the bowed and bended saplings and bushes, the trees exploding, but muffled by a foot of snow. 8 inches, then a half-inch of ice, right at freezing for 4 hours, water froze on contact, perfect conditions, then four more inches of snow. A crystal world, laid heavy in white. Every single branch and twig covered with a sheath of ice and a layer of snow. Stunningly beautiful. Fucking Russian novel. The 03 storm was just inches and inches of ice, destroyed the forest, every tree on my 25 acres was damaged, this was more like Rousseau in Siberia. Serene. Because the iced branches were slightly damp the second snow stuck to everything. A magnificent Runic document. The sky was white all day, the same above and below. Out each window the view was slightly different, a framed image of absolute winter. Black and white photos, no color at all, a complex jumble of bushes and saplings and trees weighted over with snow and ice. B came over mid-afternoon, duck-walking under the shrubbery, we drank a toast and discussed my survival. That day, and the next couple, the ice would break loose from the trees when the weight became too much, crashing down through the various layers of underbrush, a shattering event. Cannonades in the distance. I take a chair on the back porch, roll a smoke and watch. Prismatic. You can't see fifty feet into the woods. It's a Goldsworthy installation "Frozen Taiga". You can't tell the background from the foreground, nothing makes any sense, it beggers the imagination. I move my reading and writing self to the island, five utility candles and an oil lamp, write in an old Composition Book, black taped spine, machine sewn, that I picked up at Big Lots for just this occasion. It's very quiet, between explosions, just the ticking of the stove. When you live with candles you're sensitive to airflow. The next day I walked over to B's, and it was a duck walk, for his bow-saw, mine is a useless piece of shit, so I could generate some body heat and be productive. Mid-afternoon I clip a trail through bowed saplings, then last thing, at dusk, walk over to the head of the driveway, where the view opens out. Birds breaking into the sumac seed-heads. Scarlet, like blood on virgin snow. Work in the woodshed for hours, stopping often and staring into the middle distance. Good timing, Skip had sent a load of my work that I had otherwise lost, so I read myself, some of myself, 500 pages, and some of it was acceptable, Text Toward Building A House, which outlines the decision trees involved in building a house, balancing money and time, satisfying whatever conditions, the mind and the eye. That middle layer of ice is perfect for drinks, that and icicles, which I collect and keep in a cooler on the back porch. I bow-saw a couple of red maples so I can collect their frozen sap, it makes a very good drink. Whiskey and snow isn't bad, but it's kind of like an adult slushy. I fall into a routine, stay outside as much as possible, then light some candles and make notes. Park at the closest corner of the island to the stove. I eat everything right from the pan, no mediation, I cook in cast iron, there is no heat lost. One of these nights, when it's very cold, I heat a skillet and wrap it in a towel, take it to bed with me. I'm shameless. This is extreme, if I fall I die, so I watch where I place my foot. The minor injuries are mostly caused by ice. It's very sharp. I'm ashamed of my knuckles. This is the very edge, where you maybe let slip certain elements of personal cleanliness. I haven't been out of long-underwear for days, I smell. So much bounce light, through every window, I can write without candles until after 6.