Civilize

After the fact, I understood what had happened. I'd gone over to the dictionary table (it's a slab of polished sandstone lab-counter, two feet deep by six feet long) to reference a Latin word, and I ended up on the sofa with the Dictionary Of Americanisms that McCord had sent along a few years ago. It's in a couple of volumes and they're large and the type is small, I have to wear reading glasses to decipher the text, and the format is crazy, twenty different typefaces, in italics and small caps; and I have to go into what I think of as 'comprehension mode' to tease out meaning. ---(2) HUNTER "Trail Drivers Texas" 442. "We would civilize up a bit when we went to a dance, that is, we'd take off our spurs and tie a clean red handkerchief around our neck." And since I had the reading glasses on, the dictionary propped on my knees, the light coming over my right shoulder, I elected to just keep reading, as if it were a novel, some off-the-cuff thing by Mark Twain or Dorothy Parker. One thing as good as another. I spend some time with 'climbing spurs' for which there's one of those confusing line drawings that makes no sense until I walk away and come back looking at it from a different angle. Then 'clod crusher', an epithet used by Americans to describe the large feet which they believed to be characteristic of Englishwomen as compared with those of their own country. 'Clove', a ravine or valley, chiefly in place names. I inhabit the ridge at Low Gap Clove. Not unlike the use of Kill for a small stream. Mostly Dutch. Low Gap Kill. A rill, a merry note, where Upper Twin Creek emerges from the hillside. I have to go, this is too much fun. Rain all day. I read Nobokov. Then finish a history of sunflowers that I seem to have set aside. Phone is out of commission again. I heard it make a little chirp and when I checked it was dead. No Sunday phone calls. I read through a batch of articles written about Sargent after his death. Hagiology, for the most part, but interesting little details. He hated packing but moved around all the time, he was a strong swimmer, he lived a Spartan existence when he painted in the field, favored porridge for breakfast. Good friends with Henry James. Knew all the Impressionists, but never displayed with them. I look very closely, magnifying glass closely, and the brush work seems effortless. He would wait for particular light, and then work feverishly for six or eight minutes. Monet kept ten or twelve paintings going all the time, so he could catch several different lights. Sargent would back up ten feet, cock his head, then attack the painting. Recollections of memory. Nobokov was talking about that today, in a story, how far history is to be trusted. Not far, as history is truly the art of the oppressor. I'll pick this up later, I need a nap. Doctor John, time for a change, listening in the dark, then I curl up on the sofa, having muted the sound, wrap up in a blanket, and let the rain drift me off. Phone back on, so I'll ship this one and start another.