Notes

         You arrived a week ago today. Tall distant Florida thunderheads float over the Gulf’s calm blue morning waters. Kim is out on the deck reading the last half of Jodi Picoult’s Handle with Care. Paul is on Kim’s MacBook, Carol is doing laundry and you are hovering over the keyboard. Lunch at the nearby Conch Republic with everyone but Jean who is at the Bristol, Tennessee  drag race track with Bob M. and his parents.

         When you awoke this morning you were thinking of Mrs. Jennings taking the Dashwood girls to London to socialize and suddenly realized that Madeira Beach is your London with three Hammond sister families gathering somewhat sensibly in Florida once a year.

         It is not 1811 of course, but I think Miss Austin would see the connection in this slightly out of order methodology of thought. Madeira Beach or even St. Pete doesn’t ring true with London but with four Hammond sisters it makes social sense even if one sister doesn’t come to the gathering.

         If I am going to do an analogy of Merlyn’s mind based on the structure of Canterbury Cathedral I will need reason better than the above. How am I using the seven architectural constructions?

         First, you need concern yourself with only two here, the Nave which “. . . was deliberately spacious to allow for the numbers of pilgrims . . .” and was thus without chairs. And, the Quire, “ . . . where the monks sang the daily liturgical offices. . . .” For Merlyn the Nave will represent the place for all of the characters in his dreams to mingle. And, the Quire will represent their service to the books, their dialogues, as it were, rather than their singing.

         Amazing. Where do these thoughts and words come from?

         Out to lunch, return with Carol, Owen, Linda and Bill. The others went to the other condo (Mary Lou, Sharon, Mia and Corie) about a mile down the beach. Lite supper and drinks in. Tomorrow Paul leaves, returns to South Pointe for Monday surgeries. You are tired. Leave for the airport at a quarter of nine. Then later shopping and lunch across the Skyway Bridge.

         I am still wondering how many people are involved in the Nave. Pilgrims all in their own fictional way I suppose. It even makes sense in terms of Merlyn’s life. I am immediately reminded of Tom Stoppard’s  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, one of my favorite plays of absurdity and existentialism. I classify Ionesco’s The Chairs in the same category and then throw in Sartre’s No Exit and you have an inkling of my sense of humor.  “Merlyn’s Dream Characters as Pilgrims in the Nave of Canterbury Cathedral” has the nice title ring.  

         Your humor fits right in orndorff, as well it should. Fits my present enterprise quite well, thus it will be included. Post. – Amorella.