BIRD WATCH

Mae Sarton returned to her journal on the 1st of Dec. and yesterday she was already thinking of the Christmas spirit. I thought of baby Jesus being wrapped by Mary. My elders swaddled infants, too. I was not allowed to loosely wrap my babies. I was told it was a comfort to the child to be held in the firm embrace of the womb and upon exit the little one needed to be slowly released. I think this is true. Now I wonder if we should swaddle our elders, too. I could use a tight hug from time to time.

Willa Cather has said that "the novel is a form of imaginative art, it cannot be... journalism." So out of the vast stream of possibilities the writer must select the "eternal material of art." Her work is classic and alive because she chose her material well. Willa even called the art "a game of make-believe." As I read her "Critical Studies on Writing as an Art" I feel something being cut from me. I feel it falling away. She is trying to give me freedom... a gift of literary liberty.

The bit of morning light that has found the poinsettia has lit it with a scarlet flame.The crimson birds have not yet appeared and I feel lonely for them.

When Ann and Sharon have returned from swimming at the Y Roberto and I were watching "The Rose Tattoo", a movie based on a play by Tennessee Williams. Burt Lancaster is a perfect buffoon and made us laugh. But he raised Anna Magnani from the dark depths of a hopeless depression. He helped her find the grace to set her daughter free and the courage to offer her heart to love again.

Aina Wiklund came at about 10:30 AM today and we went to Bachman's for lunch. I had the gunpowder green tea and she had the lemon mint green tea. I think they left out the gunpowder because I failed to explode. Later we walked around her gardens and I measured myself by the tall grass in her restored prairie at the old farm in Rosemont. Later we relaxed on the recliner sofa. Then I did a bird check from the dining room window and identified: cardinals, blue jays, goldfinches, woodpeckers, juncos, and chickadees. We then enjoyed a cup of tea from her home province in Sweden. A large hairy woodpecker looked in on us at the window. Later Aina and I walked in the woods before supper and she burned a bit of waste while I worried about burning down the forest.