Plans big & small.

Today I did a little laundry and did a few dishes and ate a burrito but also some salad, made the second pitcher of iced tea of the summer (Moroccan mint), thought a little or a lot about Morocco. Bought a pair of red shoes. Worked out, added notes to my poem-storm, admired my garden.

My friend Ann came over this morning--we had a plan to watch Pitch Perfect, which she had not seen (!), and which, in my opinion, was necessary preparation for watching Pitch Perfect 2. Which we plan to do sometimes soon. She brought doughnuts from Fresh Donut & Deli (the best!). What a pleasure, to laugh with her as we watched a movie that has given me so much pleasure. She also brought her own cold Dr. Pepper, because she is always prepared.

Later, I wrote to my oldest friend Mary, who will be coming to visit me next week. We've planned a little road trip down south and east, to Hovenweep and beyond. We're both bringing our cameras. We will see all of these things, whatever they are, for the first time with each other. It will be an adventure and a pilgrimage and the hours we will spend together--necessary, crucial, for both of us.

I've been thinking and feeling the great blessing of these friends--truly, of all my friends. How glad it makes me to see them, how restored to myself, how much richer my life feels because of them. How much more open the world seems because of them, because I unlock the hoard of time I keep by instinct, and because I spend that hoarded time at least a little more freely. I need that time, the time I keep, for quiet, for writing, for solitude; but I also recognize that this can become a kind of fetish, a dogma. Better to be heterodox. Better to both keep and spend.

Tomorrow I will continue to go through the first edits of my book (my book!). I will write the biographical statement that will actually go in my book. I'll meet with another friend for a project at work. I'll work out. I have plans to see another friend mid-June, and I need to find a time to have dinner with several other friends. This list, even writing it, can raise a small atmosphere of panic. But one thing at a time. The days have room for solitude and for friendship, for quiet and for conversation. For Pitch Perfect and for Francis Bacon, and a little iced Moroccan mint tea, just to keep things cool.

Someone else is living the life I should be living.

My oldest friend sent me a link to Marie Claire Maison, and a feature they had about "Maisons de créateurs et stylistes." Apparently, the life I should be living is in point of fact being lived by Giorgio Armani, when he is on vacation at the house he has on a little volcanic island ("une petite île volcanique") approximately midway between Sicily and Tunisia. Here is his "terrasse arabe":

According to the article, "À l'heure du thé à la menthe, on s'installe sur la terrasse arabe, cet espace lumineux et généreux, équipé de grands canapés confortables."

Well! I, too, would like to install myself on the Arabian-style terrace at the hour of mint tea, especially when said terrace is a generous and luminous space. And I'd like to know what unfortunate confluence of fortune and my own lack of Europeanness, not to mention my failure to be a designer or a stylist, led to this problematic end. The very least I can do, it seems to me, is organize my back patio with comfortable furniture and designate a late-afternoon hour as "l'heure du thé à la menthe." In fact, consider it done. Done.

In other news, I found a copy of Lucky Jim at the Bingham Creek Library, which, as it turns out, is far superior to the West Jordan branch I had been patronizing. I might start riding my bike, when I get a bike, to this new location. I pointed out to the historian that it was a little bit uphill to the Bingham Creek library, which may be something I don't "do" anymore on a bike. After further contemplation, however, I noted that a hill on the way to the destination usually signifies riding downhill on the way home. It's important to do this kind of cost/benefit analysis. It's the sign of a well-trained critically-thinking mind, and I'm all about that.