Thursday, July 7, 2016: It's all about the book

Thursday, July 7: It’s all about the book

After meditation and breakfast, I was at my laptop, working on the book solidly from 9 to 12:30. I got all the content copied into new files reflecting the new organization. After lunch I made a mid-course correction and broke out two new sections, so it will be a book in six parts, rather than four.

By 3:30 I had organized all that. I think I’ll need to read through the entire thing in one sweep tomorrow (Friday). I am amazed at how much progress I made.

At about 5:30, after a walk, I decided to join the group of writers on the porch. There were about 20, and most were drinking wine and chatting happily, but between my hearing loss and the correction made by my hearing aids, I couldn’t understand a word.

So I returned to the lobby area, which was silent, and wrote a poem about my hearing problem. Its just a sillylittle poem, but I liked it enough to read at the evening readings after dinner.

Say what?

I can’t decode the cocktail party banter
hubbity hub bub, hubbity hub.
Can they even understand each other?
cackle-cackle, haw haw, he he he
What’s the joke? Should I laugh along?
mumbly, mumbly, mumbly-peg
How much of the world passes me by, misunderstood?
huh? huh? Pardon me, something-or-other, wha’d he say?
I guess it doesn’t matter, anyway.

--James W. Kershner, Wildacres, July 2016

The lobby, where we have the evening readings, is a very large room—about 40-by-60—with glass walls framed by oak woodwork on three sides. There is a huge stone fireplace and leather furniture reminiscent of a Victorian Library. Everyone is very supportive in the readings.

Thanks to Elaine Cahoon Miller for this panoramic photo of the evening readings in the lobby.