Around This Time, 2019

4/1/ 2019: The Cross is there. It is coming. The only difference will be, will we take it up and walk with Jesus, through Gethsemane and Golgotha to Heaven, or refuse it and be left in Sheol?

God does not foresee. He SEES. When He created the world, He knew the price that would be paid, saw everybody who would suffer, saw everyone who would deny Him, saw the wars and disease and sin, saw the betrayal and the thorns and the nails, and He knew the price was not too great to pay for the reward. If I want to see what that reward is, I must accept my part in paying that price, knowing that Jesus has already paid in full what I could never have made good myself. And I do. I take up my cross.

Ezekiel 18:20, Ezekiel 33:14-15, and so forth. The iniquities of the fathers can be seen as a sort of inheritance, the consequences of which must be overcome, not that God wants the son to suffer it, but which the sons might be left in a condition (not unlike all mankind after Adam) that must be struggled against. The father and the son must both pay for their own sins, but the iniquity of the father is an ‘inheritance’ against which the son must also struggle, a condition in which the father leaves him.

So. Wash, cooking, and so on, with maybe a little too much ramen. Made up files and documents for JABS [Junior Agent, Bureau of Shadows], and B&D, and Roth’s Wooing, notes and writings. By the end of the day had the first page of PWOGR [Peculiar Wooing of General Roth]; wanted to start at least a trial page for the others, but nae dice. Very cold and cloudy all day until late afternoon, with some sun and a little warming again. All in all such ambiguous weather stirs a lot of memories and thoughts.

 

4/2/2019: Up about 7:30 AM, after annoying dream about Susan trying to pin on me the deed, early in my days of living with them, of switching cheap pirate copies of DVDs with their good ones, and of Kaitlyn looking at me judgmentally. Also reminds me of an earlier dream: Pop and me going to the college campus (was he picking me up?) and him having to get out and pee on a pecan tree to the scandal of students, and me having to explain and excuse that he was an old man. 

Got up, prayed a rosary with meditations on the Sorrowful Mysteries instead of each HM being for a person, institution, or virtue, and was deeply moved. Started ‘Regular Time’ seeing The Gold Rush was on; wrote notes on General Roth and caught up diary. Went in a little after 9 AM to get ramen.

Went to RCIA on “Sin”. In summation, it’s a mystery. Got measured for a baptismal robe. Went in to practice for 3^rd Scrutiny.

 

4/3/2019: Woke up with the story for “Baron” in my head, from a dream. Wrote on it from 7 AM to 1 PM. Got 10 pages.

E-mail to John: Writing proceeds apace, although this afternoon I've become somewhat bogged down in this becalmed betwixt and between weather. Maybe I'm just tired: I worked between 7 AM and 1 PM, and after I lay down for a nap and got up to make supper, I seem to have run out of gas. I'm feeling a bit betwixt and between myself, not to mention rather bewitched, bothered and bewildered as I wait for the book to come out (sometimes it seems it may NEVER happen), Easter looming with all it will bring me,  the end of school for Kameron (and I anticipate that might bring on many changes), and my 56th birthday (when I reach Mom's age). It all sounds trifling, inevitable, and even joyous, but anticipation is making me nervous. Not anxious, per se, but jittery. I want something to HAPPEN. I wonder if there's anything I can or should be doing for the book right now. My circle is so small I don't know if anything I do will help more than it already has. I suppose I just have to wait -- but it's HARD! I imagine it sounds mild to someone who has a family, a job, and a house to take care of. I want to sail into calmer waters, is all. Probably the divine discontents of Spring have something to do with it all.

4/4/2019: Saw my anima in my dreams: a girl about 10 who was taking over my room and work. Started working on “Baron” again, from just where the Loveman ladies are introduced. Finished the first draft at 4 PM and went in for my duties. Rigby [a racoon] right on the porch and won’t be chased away, complicating things. Finished cooking, came out, caught up Diary, and here about 6 PM will send John the draft. Suddenly the day is hot once more.

John replied a little after 8 PM, and correctly guessed “Baron’s” identity. I was inspired to run the story through natural reader and made about a dozen corrections. And so it goes on.

John’s later e-mail: I can only imagine the dream that inspired it! There is some really gritty, nasty stuff here that you pull off very nicely- I shouldn't be surprised by that at this point, and yet, I was a little, and very impressed to boot. The ladies were weird and fun- the capper was the description of the urban wilderness that Baron happily marched into at the end, its bestial incarnation- demon eyes, belly. etc., like the whale that swallows him up in the movie- very sly, fun creative stuff here!

Notes: In context, it was not yet Easter and my baptism and confirmation were looming. I was getting a LOT of writing done. I've cut a few of the dreams I was having at the time; there are quite enough of them left.