Still Lifes, Weathered: Wine

     Wine gloriously poisons. Gin poisons, yes it does: jagged claws scraping the soft and seething lining. But wine as well, wine as well, wine as well...

Still Lifes, Weathered: Dream

     Dream flash, February 1989, weeks after my father’s death at sixty-nine: our backyard in Sacramento, the astringent floral of cut grass permeating the summer air, under a sprawling valley sky whose blue air breathed like a Vermeer still life, our German Shepherd circling the pussy willow, our Siamese cat cushioned on an aromatic cedar window seat, and my mother, young, curious, sliding open the screen door to call us in for lunch. In the dream I am low to the Spring earth, a toddler, gazing upward at my father, my hand reaching up to his, and in my knowing mind I think to him You have to go away now, don’t you. He had been gazing at nothing across the backyard, mournfully, yet attentive of me, but at my voice he turned his head gently, gazing farther away as if facing a summons, and there is discomfort, apprehension, a tired foreboding in his whispered reply Yes.

    As often from these dreams I awake startled and vaguely sad, for it was only a dream. I knew he had to go, and he knew he had to go, and for this visit I was cast as a toddler with insight, but in the dream my father was a young husband with a toddler, as perhaps deeply in dusty memory I’ve seen him, or caressed timeless photographs of us, a young family standing before a pine sapling newly planted in our fresh suburb, awaiting fulfillment of all the promises. 

    Now I am many years older than my father in the dream. If I was the man I am now embodying the child in the dream, to his gloomy yes I would have soothed, But you’re released…

A Writing Life: Tiggy, Calvin Tompkins, and large rock in parked truck

To begin this series, A Writing Life, I had to wait for our sleeping tortise-shell cat to vacate the cushioned chair beneath the desk that holds my laptop. I've never been one to disturb a sleeping animal; on a day off, I can easily procrastinate busily elsewhere--always a book to open and read. 

We brought Tigre, or Tiggy as we call her, back from Honduras when we lived there as overseas teachers (well, it was over the Gulf of Mexico, and valleys of the Carribbean). Cat ladies thrive in all cultures, and in a single-story brick houses neighborhood we found her as a kitten hiding in the back of an empty wine box (the lady of the house had many other dogs and cats wandering with ease and good tidings from room to room). We brought her back to our rented townhouse in the capital city, Tegucigalpa, overlooking lush green mountains of La Tigre National Park. Hauling her home in her carrier after three years at the American School of Tegucigalpa, through customs, checkpoints, and busy airport waiting rooms and baggage claim, was greatly traumatic for all of us. 

But Tiggy has wandered to another soft landing somewhere in the house. 

A Writing Life title is a bit of cheating, though early January of a new year is a good time. Annie Dillard certainly can lay claim to that prestige, but I cannot. Nevertheless, it was the first sparrow spearing out of the nest, and so it alights. I just need to get words working themselves down. I was inspired by the December 22, 2025 article in The New Yorker by longtime contributer, Calvin Tomkins, "Centenarian", a journal the writer began in his 100th year on Earth, aligning with the 100th anniversary of the magazine's first publication, February 21, 1925. I began reading the article this morning, and find it, not surprisingly, engaging. Tomkins first contributed to the magazine in 1958, and has scored his reputation writing on art and artists. Delightedly, February 21 of this year, 2026, will see me exiting the working world, for I turn 65 a few days later. 

I shared with an aquaintence, Amy Reiswig, who lives on the coast of British Columbia, that in my struggle to find time for thoughts and writing for my current project on poet Robinson Jeffers' Inhumanism, I decided a few months back to shelve it until time opened in the new retirement era. From Ms Reiswig's Master's thesis for the Department of English, McGill University, Montreal, March 2000, titled "Robinson Jeffers, Hermit of Carmel: Recontextualizing Inhumanism", I've discovered insights and direction for my project. She maintains that the poet's seeming misanthropy was rather kinship with the Christian eremetic tradition of leaving the hectic, superficial, and corrupt cities to seek quies, or tranquility in the desert, or what Jeffers would later call the "wild god of the world". When I'd emailed that I was surprised she hadn't blossomed her thesis into a full length book, she regretted not having done so, but time got away from her with other committments intruding, including articles written (I should look these up; wonder why I haven't). I wrote her that instead of remaining unpublished and ignored while busy in my full-time job, why not wait until I have all the time in the world to be unpublished and ignored? Truth is, my essays have been published, three of them, but the last was eight years ago, and one essay was published in an online literary journal, Cargo Literary, which is now defunct, and even Google's AI cannot find the eclipsed link to it (just checked), so the question is: does that essay count as published?

Thoughts of Jeffers' Inhumanism follow me always like a thirsty dog (Nietzche used that simile in a letter). Notes for the proposed essay fill pages of the notebook I carry with me to work daily; not a teacher anymore, but to quote a line from Tracy Chapman's classic song, "now I work in a market as a checkout girl". But one scene I want to include, or fit into the essay. An early memory, misty bluish white in mind or veiling the dawn of the day it occurred in my childhood home in Sacramento, sees my mother and brother and me on the sidewalk along the side of our house and yard. Our Siamese cat appears to be going away, leaving us. She wanders down the street, pausing to meow back to my mother who attempts to follow her. My mother finally turns, distress lining her face, and she tells us our cat is going away to die. I must have believed it, not fully knowing about the reality, but understanding my mother's sadness. I remember to the cat's hesitancy, turning back around, as though unwilling to carry out her instinct's orders, her love for her human family struggling to defy fate. Would she die alone? We never saw her again. My mother died alone in her bed in August 2002. I should have been sitting beside her, and was not. 

Last night, in the rainy dark, I pulled my car out of the driveway to park along the street, so my wife, driving back from Oakland where she gathered with her old book club friends, could pull right into the driveway. Parked streetside the next house over was a small, dingy white pickup truck, with a large rickety fenced bed. Besides some tools, sticking up shadowy gray in the night's rain, stood a huge rough-shaped rock, five or six feet tall and round. Why, truck, haul you the rock? Industrial size, will it find home in a some landscape? And how does the driver propose to hoist the colossus from the truck bed? In the rainy morning the truck was still parked, driverless. Suddenly a light wind rose, and the mud brown rock shimmered gently as a flag. I saw now that solidity was illusion. A rock-colored tarp covered and protected other valuable tools, or perhaps a lawnmover. 

Wind reveals truth. 

Letters: July 10, 1952

[Two days before the wedding]

    The enclosed is the complete list, more or less, for those I’ve invited to the wedding reception. Some of the addresses are missing and I’ll have to get those this weekend. The [unintelligible] of me is enough I guess unless you want to add more yourself.
    My leave has been approved officially and that is one more thing checked off.
    I have quite a few things to tell you but I’ll wait until the weekend or tell you on the phone tonight. Just things pertaining to the wedding.
    So Princess - just a short note for now. I miss you very much and I love you very, very much
    

John

John Joseph Corrigan and Barbara “Tommy” Dean Lowery were married in Newport Beach, CA, July 12, 1952, at Christ Church By The Sea,

Letters: May 30, 1952

    It’s very lonely without you here with me and I’d give anything if you could be here. We would have the whole camp to ourselves practically, as everyone has taken off for someplace. I took off but only in the plane to cover the General. Went all the way up Death Valley to Furnace Creek Inn, which is quite a fabulous place, from the air. It was about a four hour flight and I have to do it again when the General decides to come back. Incidentally the aide to the G told me my restriction was lifted but gave no reason why. This General acts kind of odd sometimes. Nothing was said about my staying an extra day this last time. In fact Col. Kimbrell, my boss, said he hoped I spent the time buying champagne as he would be real thirsty around July 11th. So will I but I doubt if I could hold a glass.
    Tomorrow is our inspection and we’re really ready for it but I’ll be glad when it’s over. Inspections are always rough. -- Gee I miss you hon. I miss your smile and your saying - love you - or when you say it when you’re across a room. Honey, this engagement and marriage is the most important thing in my life and I want it to be perfect in every respect. It will be too--I just know. That’s why a lot of little things mean so much to me, like you saying - love you - and things like that. Guess I’m getting redundant--

    So Angel--to morpheus--have to get up at five goddamn o’clock. Hope you had a swell time in Delhi.*

    I love you Barbara.

*Small California town in the San Juaquin Valley, then home to many migrant farmworkers and their families; site of Barbara's first teaching job.

Letters: May 17, 1951

    I just got in about an hour ago from Victorville. I got stuck there by high winds and had to spend the evening. Inasmuch as I didn’t have my blouse with me [What in the world's he talking about here?] I couldn’t go to the officer’s club or show so I went over to the tower at the air force base and listened to the conversations of the pilots up yonder. A real interesting evening.
    Just had breakfast--there were two other officers besides myself for breakfast. The place is really deserted. The swimming pool is open though and I may go over there this afternoon. It’s a nice pool--about seventy-five feet long and thirty feet wide. Filled with water too. -- I’m out at the airstrip again and it’s real hot here. It’s nine-thirty and the temperature is 89° already. It should be brutal this afternoon.
    I’ve been daydreaming off and on and most of it has been about us and in Hawaii. Imagine on a beautiful evening dancing under palm trees or drinking a tall cool drink or walking along the beach under the (advertised) moon. Sounds real swell to me. And it’s only fifty-seven days away too.
    For the next three days we have a Corps inspection by Gen. Kean. He’ll be in tomorrow. We’re all set for this inspection though and we know what to expect.
    Gee I’m lonely. I’d call you now but I don’t have the money and I can’t cash a check until the PX opens this afternoon. Incidentally hon, after our call the operator asked me how long we talked, as she hadn’t kept the time. I guessed about fifteen minutes and she said she would charge us for thirteen minutes. It was probably about twenty minutes.
    Princess I love you. And I’ll see you Thursday night. So bye for now--I miss you terribly sweet.

Letters: May 16, 1952

    Hi Wife, Hon, I love you. Today it’s more than ever. So there. This morning went off okay with one or two exceptions--which I shall tell you later. I guess there were around a thousand people or so out here but I don’t know where they came from. We had a big parade plus use of our exhibits (tanks, vehicles etc.) and our demonstration of firing, of which I was a part. It was pretty good--at least that’s what the General said.
    The exception I told you was this: the airstrip had quite a few visitors too, especially children and one of them, about six or seven years old (not mentally) was especially and definitely precocious. The little bastrap was bound and determined to take home the propeller off my plane. At first I laughed--then pleaded and cajoled, finally threatened. I finally got him away from the plane and forgot him until I heard a hammering. Honest, the little son of a --- had gotten a hammer from our tool box, taken a small ladder out to the plane and reached up to the prop and was gleefully hammering away at the safety wire and the bolts. I ran out to the plane (a mere fifty yards but I was so mad I didn’t get tired) and a woman, the boy’s mother I guess, ran out too in time to save: (a) him from strangulation, (b) me from electric chair for murder. The boy was really serious about taking the prop home but gave up when I told him the cost of the prop and also the fact I’d club him over the head if he got near the plane again. --A very trying afternoon. In fact the rest of the day was anti-climactic.
    This afternoon practically everyone has gone. I gave all my boys the day and night off and I’m now here at the airstrip. It’s real quiet here and I’m alone with you. Oh yes--you’re here with me, in case you didn’t know--you may be there but you’re here too--always.
    So my darling, another weekend gone. Next weekend will be here real quick but I wish I were starting out right now. Oops, have to go--have to fly down to Victorville to pick up some stuff for the G-3 section. Bye for now.