6/23 Left the Mountain Top before six so we would reach Newburgh before ten so I could do my customer call. Morning fog between the lush green ridges in seemingly random patches, amplifying the depth of the landscape. It is so beautiful you’d want to live there for these mornings alone.
6/22 In the center of Vermont, roughly, on a mountain top (which is what the place is actually called), looking out over a silver greyish lake surrounded by huge green ridges on all sides (which is why these mountains are called the Green Mountains, it makes perfect sense), with a heavy cloud cover above that obscures most, but not all of the mountain rims.
The place is meticulously kept, a sprawling complex of lodge, barn, cabins, and a throughput of – I estimate – up to three weddings per day.
I can’t gnaw my teeth into what I am told, I forget the stories right upon hearing them, especially if they involve people or even families. And it’s not for lack of trying.
6/21 Wedding in Vermont, war in Iran.
6/20 Ben Folds in Tarrytown. Story of the crying burglar.
At the pool this morning. Clearly overtrained, as I find out after only a few strokes. I cut the routine short, and still end up with some weird deep pain in all of my right arm. In the whirlpool a boomer plays music on a bluetooth speaker. Strangers In The Night. He asks me what I want to hear, I remain silent.
6/19 Juneteenth. In New York it feels like Sunday, and a quiet one at that. J has a regular workday at her company in Georgia.
Going to America and becoming a citizen was a project of fifteen years, starting at the beginning of the first Obama administration. It is doubtful I would do that in the situation of today. But here I am.
6/18 Carefully maneuvering towards sleep.
6/17 The damage to America lies only halfway in the actions of this president, the other half is that this country elected him, in free and fair elections, twice.
6/16 Playing jazz standards half drunk after dinner, before going to bed.
6/15 Watching footage of the parade, seeking signs of disobedience and disdain in the soldiers, cheering when we think we’ve found it.
6/14 Bryant to Madison Square. Definitely remarkable about these protests is the good vibes of everybody. They are reporting it from all over the country, “joyous “ is the usual word. Looking around for particularly witty signs and cracking up about them. Great music, great chants, great rhythms. The mood may have been just an inch more somber today because of the rain, and on the signs the word “fascism” appears more often than before, summarizing and abstracting what is happening. Apart from a few parked police vehicles around which the stream of protestors flowed easily, I did not see any officers along the route. About one in a hundred protestors was masked to conceal their identity.