Performance-complex: Successfully thwarted

Things To-Do To-Day:

*make impassioned parking ticket appeal

*schedule various appointments 

*order school books

*etc. in host of ho-hum tasks

And how much of this have I accomplished? Um, none. I came home from work, sat on the porch for a while, and slept for two hours (yes, the dreaming kind of sleep, not the I'm-lying-here-thinking-of-everything-I-have-to-accomplish nap). And I took the Sweet Dog on one of my death marches around the Loop and we watched our neighbor stack thick golden hay bales onto his little red tractor. 

In other news, baby brother went off to be a college boy today. I gave him a card with a warning about pool halls. He'll be fine. And now I'm surprised at how I miss him. Not his physical presence even,  just the comfort of knowing he lives here and I can always come home and bake him something. And I'm lonely for him, too, thinking about the loneliness of those first few days of Away at School. I remember the feeling, of being slightly (ok, a lot) lost and aching for the routine of classes that would give me something to do and some place to belong. It comes, thank goodness. 

I've tried, this summer, not to be too hyper about RUF so that he won't be totally repelled. I can't count the times I've had to resist blurting out, "And when you come to Winter Conference in February . . ."  Sigh. Yes. I work really hard to not act like a cult member about RUF. 

And now, I'm about to go finish a Wendell Berry essay on the importance of standing by words. I realized the other day this has been the summer of Wendell Berry - his short stories, poems, prose. I love the way he shows how the important things happen in the routine of our daily lives. And how he articulates so well my catch-phrase of the summer, realistic optimism.

          

"There are, it seems, two Muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say, "It is yet more difficult than you thought." This is the muse of form . . . it is the willingness to hear the second muse that keeps us cheerful in our work. To hear only the first is to live in the bitterness of disappointment."