Most of the time, I have a strong desire to outlive the construction and repair projects that have erupted in my corner of the world. But some times, I want to disappear right now. One way or the other, the intrusive racket is wearying. I can’t say that the workers and their machines are uncivil, but they’re not quite civil, either, and of course they don’t belong to the neighborhood.

But the noise that’s on my mind is something else. Yesterday, after lunch, Ray Soleil and I sat up and down in the blue room trying to figure out where to move a large stereo amplifier. It’s very much in the way of one of the bookshelves where it is. After about an hour, during which I rejected all of Ray’s ideas (having had them myself), Ray proposed moving the unit to the other side of the room. I wasn’t keen on the exact spot that he had in mind, but his suggestion achieved what I’d given up as impossible, opening up a new field of possibility. Now I think I know where the amplifier will go. It’s a question of marshalling wire and other supplies so that, once I start unplugging things, I’ll be ready to hook them up again as soon as things are in place. And yet it remains to be done, to exhaust other hours. Why not just get rid of the whole thing, I thought to myself, aware at the same time that I couldn’t possibly do without the beautiful music that was filling the room.

That’s where the afternoon went, more or less. When Ray left, I wrote a few letters and then hunkered down to my heure française, and the further exploits of various revolutionaries and adventurers in Central America selon Patrick Deville. I got very hungry — my gastrointestinal wobbliness seems to have moved upstream — and, to keep myself entertained while fixing some dinner, I watched Jack Black in Bernie, which turned out to be a less strange, more satisfying movie than I’d expected, and funny in a very familiar, Texan way. It has been been more than twenty years since I was last in Houston (or anywhere else Lone Star), and I generally assume that things have moved on since then; but, according to Bernie, apparently they haven’t changed much.

And so another day passed without my spending any time on my writing project. It has been so long since I looked at it that all I want to do is read what I’ve got, and perhaps to type up some notes. But the moment doesn’t arrive. It won’t today, either. After lunch, I’m going to head over to the Museum for a small concert in the musical instrument galleries: a Facebook friend (and gifted violist) is going to play on the erhu, or two-stringed Chinese fiddle. After that, I’ll read until it is time to head downtown, to help Megan and Ryan out with a scheduling problem. All day long, I’ll be thinking about Kathleen, who, all day long, will be flying home from Arizona.

It has been an extraordinarily noisy fall, and perhaps the subway construction and the balcony railing replacement projects have indeed undermined my peace of mind. As I write, two Latino workers are swabbing what appears to be a sealant on the balcony floor, chattering away while a transistor radio twitters in the background. Because all of our rooms, and all of our windows, give onto the balcony, it is impossible to flee this distraction without leaving the apartment altogether.

On the library front, progress has been very slow, but there has been progress. The worst part, unless it’s the best, is that I interrupt the stacking and the sorting and the shelving to open books and read them. Garrett Mattingly’s Catherine of Aragon, although published in 1941, is far more readable and intelligent than Giles Tremlett’s 2010 entry, which I gave away ages ago.

Henry needed, however, to trust someone. Behind his bluster there was still the timidity, the uncertainty of a boy who has seen little of the world, who wants to be reassured, to be encouraged, to be told delicately and tactfully what he ought to do next. He never quite outgrew the need for someone to lean on, some affectionate, admiring mentor and guide to protect his self-esteem, and help him to his desires, someone who, living only for him, would embrace his sense of life and still his inner doubts. He was to turn to one such image after another for most of his life, only to fling away from each in outraged indignation when he found the image had a life of its own. That was a great part of his tragedy.

In the first flush of his kingship, he found Catherine, and for a while it seemed the quest might end at its beginning.

That still seems to stand up to scrutiny, and it does not jangle with speculation.

***

 

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 5th, 2012 at 10:05 am.