Tues. 11 Sept 79 –
Every day catalogue.
Jan & Mary Ellen to dinner – she has black eye but otherwise seems no different. Does not disparage new house where they still plan to live.
Mom sends separate letters to me & T. I feel she is on “his side” not mine. She thinks “living together” is at the heart of all our problems (secretly, she probably thinks it’s my “exhibitionism”. Me, the shy introvert!)
Reading Self-Starvation about how children make enemies of their own bodies in reaction to growing up. Tremble with recognition. Mom said things in her letter she could only know from what I wrote to my older sister Genevieve. That outlet stopped. Feeling a rush of mature personal power – I’m moving beyond them.
New novel Speechless is a bloody struggle. Writing about things too close to me. Wrote my first seriously bad scene – the adults all together.
3:50 PM – too upset after letter from Genevieve to write. She has been robbed of her honest feelings – she is just pumping up and down on the merry go round. They obviously think T will get sick of me soon but can’t decide if that is good or bad. My insistence on having a “real relationship” means I’ll never have one! Silly me. Need to do housework – or something – till I feel better. Shouldn’t try to write when feeling so despondent.
Midnight – Bath & Facial. Toss beautifully aroused – we made love TWICE. He says I am only girl he ever wanted to marry. Feel even our most terrible problems are being slowly overcome. Routine & diet coming under control. Dream of the Rood unsuccessful book.
12 Sept 79 – Magnificent day only half over. Charting novel – seems “completeable.” Starting research for short story Demon. No bad mail – no guilt about housecleaning – send off Walt Whitman entry. Sylvia Plath provides poetic incentive – I can’t put her down.
14 Sept 79 – Woke 4 am to tremendous whoosh – hackberry tree coming in window spreading shimmering shivering glass across floor. Went downstairs – more broken windows – tree leaning against house. Seemed to come out of nowhere. Put on coffee and called Toss at the newspaper where he works part-time.
He came home looking so handsome in wheat jeans & fishermen’s sweater bringing a photographer from the newspaper to take pics. Started calling people at 8 am. Insurance doesn’t want to pay so he called his insurance law professor.
Trying to read Robt Penn Warren – finished me for novels. The whole thing, after many premature burials, killed stone dead p. 300. Even there it didn’t stop. Can’t blame him for publishing it. It’s the publishers fault. If this was a woman’s novel they would flatten it. Never see the light of day. Retreat to Woolf’s diary where I plan to be for rest of week. Reading my diaries emotionally draining but inspiring. I’m up to 3 pages on The Repudiated Journals of Yuna Roe-Smith which is a lot of fun. The whole Ryder saga, though, is beyond depressing.
I had forgotten Mom wanted me to marry Armon and cried over his mother’s mean phone calls! Horrible Armon! What ashram would I be suffering in now? O, for a trustworthy literary executor instead of more family myth victims.
T. and I discuss travel – Portugal, Ireland and the literary tour of Eng. He prepares frightening presentation for Justice Goldberg. We will celebrate with Graves couple to dinner – turkey? My piece de resistance of hot, garlicky potato salad.
Sat 15 Sept 79 –
Insurance will pay. Celebrate one of our many anniversaries with muffins for breakfast. Nice cool fall day – I can wear a sweater! T says after Goldberg he will set up his new study and his old study becomes our dressing room. Good, I need closet space. Type 10 p without a break – T at library – do my exercises – hand laundry. Novel going uncommonly well except for constant awareness of what I cannot do. Tonight spaghetti & green salad. Didn’t realize I was clenching my jaw as I wrote. Sore.
Sun 16 Sept 79 – T hands me his mother’s legal file – tells me I can read it! Found exactly what I need to portray Alva. She told her kids she was allergic to their father’s sperm!! Ask if I can incorporate T’s letter to his father about StormFall into Speechless.
Can’t read African diaries. Forgot I threatened to kill myself. Needed child psychologist in a major way. Parents were always staggering around blindfolded. No map ever suits the new terrain.
17 Sept 79
Finished Part I, on to Part II. Looked everywhere for Generation of Millionaires – can’t find it. Rats. I was sure I could use almost all of it.
Letter from oldest sister Merrill tells me I have to separate from M & D for my own emotional mental health. Can I do it AFTER wedding? Reading Women in Love. Think its wasted on me.
18 Sept 79
Up to p 145 but feel I am just beginning. I need to write another gothic – it would be easier. Dumped D.H. Lawrence’s Women In Love in favor of Hahn’s Lorenzo which I can actually enjoy.
Useless trying to clean our room – T has nowhere to hang his clothes! We must construct a closet out of pass-through bedroom. This is a crazy place – longing for my own house. Yesterday such a magnificent dinner – chicken stew, wine, liqueur, pears, nuts & brie – we decided to skip dinner tonight. I love him so much but still feel like a wayfarer unrevealed. Sometime I wonder if 29 is too old to fall in love. M & D called – good conversation. To bed with History of Modern Poetry.
Alysse Aallyn 
Leave a comment