The end of my trip to the New York finished with a visit to my friend Kelly, her husband Alfredo and her daughter Lucia. I have known Kelly for twenty years and I am so happy that she has married a fine and decent man and that she is now blessed with a sweet and lovely daughter. I had a wonderful time playing with Lucia, who is one and a half, and I can’t wait until she is able to speak coherently so I can start telling her stories. Once I told my little niece Jenny, when she couldn’t see where I had parked my truck, that I had traded it for 2000 jelly donuts. She ran to my mother with the news and I have rarely seen such genuine enthusiasm. I let Lucia open the various spice jars and smell them and she seemed to really enjoy that. Later, Kelly, Lucia and I went for dinner and Lucia was very pleasant and I was able to catch up with Kelly and spend a little time entertaining Lucia.
My first week of classes has gone very well although I am exhausted. Five straight days of nearly three hours classes took a lot of energy, and reading the poems and journals and preparing for class kept me very busy. I have two more weeks and then I am off until late August. The class is a very good one and the work in groups is particularly good. They spend ample time on one another’s poems and they all seem comfortable with my feedback.
This week was also extra challenging because I performed this evening with Justin Craig and Luke, a young piano player. We had rehearsed last night but four of the songs I had not played in ten years. The performance went pretty well, particularly since Justin and Luke are very good players. I played a couple of nice blues licks.
I have decided that I am going to work on poems this summer instead of undertaking a major project. I have a lot of things to write about and the “Rebirth in the Hollow” theme will be the prevalent one.
My ex partner removed the hot tub while I was gone, and she sent me back the main gate key. I had offered to let her keep it and visit to pick berries and relax while I was on my summer trip, but I guess her feelings toward the hollow have changed too much for her to enjoy it. I hope the many years she spent there while I lived in my cabin and then in the log house will bring her some good memories.