Beautiful day! I planted the amarylis bulbs Linda Jo gave me. The leaves on the maples are unfurling. The grass needs mowing.

In December of 1962, however, he is in an army service club, listening to a record player. Remember those? He's listening to Dizzy Gillespie's Gillespiana, which "swings like hell." He thinks he may soon play some Ramsey Lewis, which, he says, reminds him of me. Which in turn reminds me of how much he introduced me to. Later, much, much later, when I had married somebody else and had a son, then divorced, I sent my son to a Montesori School on the south side of Chicago. Ramsey Lewis' children went there. I never met them or him, but that very fact meant something to me.

"Everything is grand when you're listening to jazz. Call it apathy or what have you, but I call it blissful, peaceful existence in which I have no problems. Here, I am not here..." Which is how I feel when I listen to the Dead. I don't believe he would approve or understand, but I finally found what he found in music. In that music.

A chilly sunny kind of day. The new cordless keyboard still acting up. I put a mirror behind it, at the suggestion of an acquaintance. Seems to help. Made a floating flower bowl with camellias. The blossoms are falling on the car.

The letter today is from February of 1963. He talks about relationship, about whether or not to work on it or just leave it alone and let it grow. I remember that in later relationships, I would try to have this conversation, but with no response. The old "men from Mars, women from Venus" syndrome. I read in Parabola yesterday a reminder that when one divorces - or breaks a vow - for any but the highest of motives, one is fated to repeat the mistake over and over and over, and that is what happened to me. Until now. Now I can be alone, and I'm happy with that. I'm even kind of appalled at the notion that someone else might come into my life, and I would have to change my lonely ways, allow someone else to enter my space, and although I am sometimes jealous of those I know with happy, mutually supportive relationships, and although sometimes I cry crocodile tears over what might have been, I know this is better for me. For years I wanted to work on something. Now I just want to leave it alone.

11 February 1963, wherein he meets a Greek fellow with whom he can have conversation, and bat around ideas, such as socialism: "Materialism or money which is now the criteria or reward must be changed or replaced in importance by excellence or some other more intangible but still more lasting value. This change we agreed must be a slow one, in fact by necessity gradualness will be adhered to until eventally complete adjustment to the new systm is attained. He raised the same question you have, when individualism is rheatene by economic equality..." I must have been still in the throes of Ayn Randism. Oh, the horror, the horror. Later on..."we must think of he presidents statement of what we can do fo our country..." I will dump him in the summer - run away, to a beckoning urban adventure from which I quickly retreated a year later in marriage to a very nice man to whom I felt comfortably intellectually superior. I told this one, marry me now before I change my mind. The president would be dead in 8 months.

Oh - today? Today I did yoga and replanted a chrysanthemum.

A side quest - I will insert a sort of daily journal - at least, today I will - before going on to deal with my shady past. I decided this last Sunday,while on my second week of walking Nisqually - that's a wildlife refuge about an hour south of Seattle - a tidal flt between the mouths of two rivers which open into the Sound. The main trail is 5 1/2 miles long - through a slough fille with dabbling ducks (shoverers, mallards, pintails, buffleheads), to a fishing hole on McAllister Creek (shorebirds on the muddy bank), along a country lane (with warblers and sparrows in the willows and chokecherries), to the edge of the Sound - or rather, the tidal flats that stretch out into the Sound (goldeneye, mergansers, gulls, a Caspian tern) - along the sound, and back between the banks of the Nisqually River and the slough (a bald eagle, great blue herons, wood ducks, a not so shy bittern, turtles in the sun, and a rufous hummingbird flitting past the salmonberry). My feet hurt when I get back to the car. I carry Reese's Pieces and water. The sun is hot. It's a wonderful day.

Today, the magnolia is blooming. I am repotting flowers given to me at my birthday party. I've lot about 15 pounds on the South Beach diet. Next week I'm ordering pizza.

Today's letter is from February of 1963. Apparantly I have been bugging him to get married. Why oh why was I doing that, when I was about to take a hike? Just a few months later? I think I must have finally talked him into it, and then bugged off. Oh, the things I don't remember. I remember the engagement. I remember meeting his family, and staying at their house. I remember some of it, but I don't remember bugging him to marry me. But I do remember now, somewhat. Oh, this is bad. Very bad. This is worse than what I remembered, which was bad enough.

It is doubly ironic, since I have been reading this morning a magazine called "Parabola", this quarter's issue dealing with marriage. The article I just read on marriage, sovereignty, and transformation had paragraphs which could have been copied from this letter. He was so far ahead of me. He's so lucky I didn't marry him. I can see, as these letters edge closer and closer to the time I actually left, that they will be harder and harder for me to read. But I think there are some important truths about myself that I really do need to confront. And I need to put it down here. Not because I care what any possible readers may think of me - that old, 40 years ago me. I guess I just need to talk. So, here in this semi-public space, where anyone and everyone (but quite possibly no one) can listen, I can pretend I have an audience and talk to myself. About who I was and who I am, and what one has to do with the other.