Wildlife Up Close

I saw a real live beaver out in the wilderness! He was so cute. He had small eyes, a big humorous muzzle and fat little legs. His tail didn't look like it belonged. He hung around the river by the bridge for hours. He would just sit there in a little cove and then dive down and swim underwater for ages. They must be able to hold their breath really well. I was watching him with Margie, who's from Elgin and knows a lot about wildlife. She had binoculars. She said they're rodents, which I had forgotten, though I remembered they have teeth which grow continually. They don't all built dams, apparently. They will dam streams to make a pool but they won't try to dam larger bodies of water. Instead they'll build a lodge. Something about beavers living in lodges strikes my funny bone.

It was clear when I got up this morning, but started to rain hard while I was at breakfast. I went to the clothes room at Wolf Kahn Studio to find a sweater and jacket. The clothes room has all these free clothes and shoes. People leave them behind who don't have room for them or who don't live in cooler climates. I found a nice purple paint-stained Obermeyer shell to keep off the rain. It's supposed to get down to 35 tomorrow. So I'll get a nice taste of the cold weather. Maybe the leaves will start to change.

Letitia, Jacklyn, and I had a great read-and-critique yesterday. We had a poet, a playwright, and a novelist. We agreed it was very helpful to have cross-genre readers. Letitia's poem was about the transformation from human to werewolf and back again. Her descriptions were so evocative and particular--visceral writing. Jacklyn's short play was about a family of a mother, daughter, and son on an outing. You start to realize the father is missing from the picture. It turns out he committed suicide and the mother wants the children to lie about what happened. The daughter is a teenager who keeps changing her position as she asserts herself in opposition to everyone else.

I'm a bit discouraged about the journal entries. I don't know when they'll ever be done. Nancy said she didn't like the present tense; they're all in present tense! Fifty pages of present tense. I want them to sing and I don't know how they ever will if I edit them to death, but maybe it will make them better and I just can't see it now.