Another warm fore- and afternoon. I missed my cool-of-the-day walking window; perhaps early evening instead, then. These breezes (as opposed to gales) sweeten the day.

Hard to believe school is out. Neighborkids are with their fathers abroad for a week or two, so quiet prevails, and no interruptions other than those imposed by my role as care provider to my brother, husband, and pets.

Inevitably, then, I remain stalled creatively. I struggle not to toss it all in the fire: keep the eye on the process, not the result.

Movement of body moves the mind. This is true. So I break from Sylvia's innards and go out to tend the wilting yardplants and feed the trough-fishes, run the errands, make the stew to get us through to payday.

Tormented Elm lends her winddriven stems to the afternoon chorus, and I can detect no suffering behind her generosity.

A magnificent afternoon, wind just starting to come up, temp around 85F in Sylvia here. The leaves rustle seductive in the Tormented Elm framed in the narrow doorway.

My mind feels turned-around, a little, not quite grounded, as though one foot of me still stood on the ground of vivid dreamworld I woke from so reluctantly. My dreams of night are sweeter and fuller with every sleep since I move toward full health. It's a blessing.

But this mindframe prevents my concentrating on the page, any page, whether bookstudy or journal.

I keep drifting away ...

A noise of chainsaw - another tormented tree, perhaps. Among the dry weeds here a fawn-colored butterfly flits - blossoming salsify and alfalfa - and a housefly swerves ess-ing around.

But sparrow twitter from neighbors' shrubbery, constant, and whoosh of movement from the highway yonder.

Sylvia's wall thermometer reads 85F degrees. The top of my head is beginning to simmer a little, no sizzle yet. Roof vent has been popped, shad-side window cranked out, small floor fan pushing the air around. I overslept, now trying to catch up studying, still copying notes from Nicosia's Memory Babe Kerouac biography.

The poet Robert Duncan, reading this [cafeteria, Visions of Cody] scene in manuscript in 1954, was struck by Kerouac's extraordinary ability to sustain a 1500-word narrative in which the only exterior action, besides the passing of pedestrians, is the flashing of a neon light.

and from Visions of Cody itself,

"... my heart broke in the general despair and opened up inwards to the Lord, I made a supplication in this dream."

***

I dreamed of a small personal jet a wealthy friend owned. I let him park it on the vacant lot near my house. I looked out one day soon thereafter to see it being stolen - towed off down a shady alleyway at the lot's far end. I ran to cach up with the thief but I was too late. The towing tractor had reach the vacant nighttime avenue the alley gave onto and joined the column of carnival acts moving out in drays and flatbeds to some faraway venue, where it would be exhibited. I told the policeman I called then that I'd had it nearby because my friend had promised to teach me to fly it, if only I could get past my fears. Secretly I knew, though, that I would not have needed lessons. Secretly I knew I would have flown it just fine, on instinct.