June 25, 2020

I basically nap from four to six everyday now. Today, I napped from four until seven. It's not that I'm not sleeping well. I typically go to bed at midnight and wake up at 8:00 or so. I think it's just my way of dealing with the boredom of living during a pandemic--and to escape from the depredations of the federal government.

I started reading a book that I've known about since I think eleventh-grade English: Van Wick Brooks's The Flowering of New England. Strange how that book--or at least its title--has been with me for so long. It's a history of the literature that came of out New England in the nineteenth century. So, Emerson, Whitman, Hawthorne, Longfellow, et al. It's written in an impressionist, conversational tone--not academic at all. In fact, there are no sources cited. The author calls his style the narrative style. It doesn't read like a novel; I wouldn't go that far. But it reads as character sketches. The first two or three chapters set the scene by giving a cultural picture of New England--Gilbert Stuart's Boston, it begins with. I'm enjoying it, quite a lot. The chapters on Emerson and Hawthorne in the middle of the book seem brilliant.

What's my day typically like? I begin with coffee and reciting poetry. Whitman everyday, as I'm hoping to memorize the entirety of "Song of Myself." I'm up to section 5. Then I have a rotation. Today was assorted loose poems. On another day it will be my Herbert poems. And on a third, Yeats, Frost, and Dickinson. Almost always some speeches from Hamlet. And my Americana, such as the Gettysburg Address. Most recently, I've memorized Wyatt's "They Flee from Me" and Hardy's "Darkling Thrush" and "Snow in the Suburbs."

I finished watching all three seasons of Marcella and am now looking for a new series. I gave The Frankenstein Chronicles a go. A. recommended Good Omens: British and witty.

Speaking of A., we have made plans to have breakfast on Saturday morning in Pittsboro and then drive to Saxapahaw. She's been watching on YouTube performances of Cirque du Soleil.