Notes - A question of fear / a self-testing / relevance / a perfectionist

          Mid-morning. Breakfast and the Sunday paper. I am almost afraid to ask what Amorella’s issues might be. I have enough trouble with my own which are evident enough in this blog and the books.

         Why are you frightened of my issues, boy. Why are you expecting the ten commandments?

         Man, do you cut to the chase or what. Right to the point. I wasn’t thinking Ten Commandments specifically, but you are close enough for personal discomfort.

         Why do you capitalize ten commandments?

         My Presbyterian upbringing, I would imagine. Mother. It seems proper as they are considered Holy in my culture.

         A man brought them down from the mountain, at least that is how it is according to religious tradition. Did G---D get down on his hands and knees and chisel them out on stone tablets?

         I don’t know, Amorella. This sort of questioning is not considered proper and might even be considered blasphemous. I don’t like to think too much about these things. It doesn’t seem polite. To each their own. I try to remain respectful of other’s beliefs.

         You are arrogant for the wrong reason. You are questioning cultures not G---D.

         I really don’t want to question something I am not educated about. I am no minister, priest or rabbi. I am not a holy man. I am not schooled in theology or even that much in philosophy. I have no real legitimate right to question these matters. I don’t even believe I am arrogant here no matter what you suggest. I don’t even care if you are a figment of my imagination or an Angel or even if you were G---D, I have a right to my own feelings on these matters and they are off bounds to me. Sometimes you make me uncomfortable, Amorella. I don’t know why you do this.

         You are not being truthful here. You are concerned as to why I question your questioning or lack of it.

         I know next to nothing. I have nothing to stand on. I stand nearly empty. I have nothing to say, a mere speck in the wind has nothing to say. – rho

         Boy, you have a right to question everything. Everyone has such a right; it is a subdivision of Free Will. You are not afraid to defy G---D. Why would you be afraid of the cultures of your own species?

         It doesn’t seem polite. And, who am I to question any culture?

         And, it is polite to defy G---D directly?

         I have a right to remain who and what I am, a member of the species homo sapiens. I am built to defy G---D under these circumstances.

         Who told you this?

         No one. It is something I understand to be true.

         How?

         A once imagined experience.

         Intuitive imagination will do. Post. – Amorella.

         Why this on a tranquil Sunday morning?

         You needed the lesson on ‘fearing’ my ‘issues’. You do not fear death. You have nothing to fear, boy. – Amorella. 

           Early afternoon. Carol has made chili for lunch or supper and has been working on the bills and statements that came in yesterday’s mail (which was forgotten to be picked up until this late morning). Youngsters at the nearby St. Susanna School are into sport across Muddy Creek as you can hear the announcer call on the speakers as you were out doing some lawn and driveway trimming until one battery died and the other is not yet charged. Spent time going over the statements from the New England trip – motel, food and fuel statements mostly.

         It is hard to believe we just returned last Wednesday, it seems like we have been here for at least a week. Always catch-up after a trip but I think Carol has it all pretty well organized now; even to the point that the new TV shows are noted to watch this week. Amazing most of our over thirty year teaching careers of not watching much television now it is our entertainment central, mostly mysteries and crime shows of one kind or another with a few comedies scattered lightly salting the peppered cable and broadcasting. A new Inspector Lewis is on Masterpiece Theatre tonight, a most welcome piece of light challenge and fun.

         One of my issues is hypocrisy, my man, and how human beings deal with it. – Amorella.

         This is not an honest world we are thrown into, Amorella.

         Name anyone more honest than the physical world/universe you exist in?

         Physics has no moral values. Our Free Will allows for moral values to be consciously recognized as existing within our genetic humanity as a species. This is my raw opinion. Being respectful and polite is a moral value. Nature is not always polite, but evolution of any species shows a kind of respectfulness for life and for human acceptance in allowing a measure of dignity for all life within its own species.

         Any more to add?

         I’ve probably gone too far. Too much lecturer in me. I see this is a self-test. One never knows who sheorhe is at any given moment.

         Post. – Amorella.  

        Mid-afternoon. I have completely forgotten what scene I am on in chapter seven. Certainly we have to get through this chapter before making a transition for a chapter or so on Merlyn and Arthur.

         This is not how it works, orndorff.

         I see enough in Dore’s illustration. Merlyn explains while Arthur attempts to go about his business half listening to Merlyn’s eloquent monologues.

         Why would that be?

         Merlyn understands things, more so than any other man living or dead (in the story); Arthur is self-directed and self-centered and while he realized Merlyn is wiser he chooses not to really listen unless his life is on the line. Which of course it isn’t. . . . unless it is deemed important and relevant to Arthur directly, then he’ll listen more closely to glean what he can for the moment at hand.

         No moments, but closer than what I would have expected of you, orndorff.

         I have a good self-understanding of me playing as Arthur’s role. I have a strong self-centeredness and I am not afraid to use it.

         Such gallows’ humor tightening on a self-truth. Post, orndorff. – Amorella.  

         Late dusk. Chores done and trash out for Monday morning pick-up. After quickly noting my desktop I find I have already begun chapter eight and need to work on scene two. I don’t remember finishing chapter seven. I feel bad about the grammar in the recent Facebook thoughts. I should have reworded it. How is that for a retired teacher of English and writer to have crappy sentence structure. I earned a D at best because I should have caught the errors before friends said hello. I need to present myself better – to loosey-goosy in my typing. I misspelled Presbyterian by forgetting the ‘s’ and wrote upbring rather than upbringing. Two hours went by before I noticed and made corrections.

         This is not an excuse but writing your thoughts as you think them is troubled with grammatical errors at times, as it is similar to making a simultaneous translation. This is worth it to you enough to accept such errors and pass them on from time to time. Some teachers of English could not bring themselves to do this and share such mistakes. Do not deride yourself more than needed, to do so is a form of arrogance that moves on into pride. Can you imagine a perfectionist shutter when confronted with an Angel of G---D? There’s a story for someone to write, but not you, boy. You have enough already on your hands. All for tonight. Post. – Amorella.

Notes - Dore's "Arthur and Merlin" for Tennyson / Do you [Amorella] have issues too?

         Mid-morning. You are going to see the last Harry Potter movie at eleven-thirty at Springdale one of the few theatres still showing it. You also are going to Natorp’s to look for a crab apple for the southwest part of the lot to replace the one destroyed by two storms. You also have a quality check on works containing Arthur and Merlyn so you don’t play against the other cultural myths already out there. Plus, you have the lawn to mow. Busy day, boy. – Amorella.

         A quick glance at Wikipedia’s material sources on King Arthur is enough to bog down the Dead.

         I notice you downloaded Gustave Dore’s illustration of Arthur and Merlyn for Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King”. Good place to begin. Add and post. – Amorella.

             I made it extra large to show greater detail. One can learn a lot from an artist such as Dore. 

             I agree, particularly the tone which I think is fitting under their fictional circumstance. - Amorella. 

         Dusk, and you completed all your errands and chores as well as the lawn mowing (with Carol’s help this time). A few minutes ago you decided to send a note to your Facebook friends. As you consider your readers friends too, here it is:

         "Recently I spent part of a morning sitting on a stone bench, contemplating the Dead on "Author's Ridge" in old Sleepy Hollow Cemetery not far from Emerson's home in Concord, Mass. Visited Thoreau, Alcott, Hawthorne and Emerson that morning. Good for the old soul in this young (not quite seventy year old body) existential transcendentalist. My best to one and all! - rho ;-)"

         I did not word it well but the thought rolled out on its own. It is true, of course. I sat on the stone beach cattycornered from Louise M. Alcott. Three or four yards to her right from my perspective, lay Henry and a few yards from her left lay Hawthorne and a few yards more lay Emerson. They all loved those woods in life and chose to be buried there in death. What a wonderful bit of history brought to life in my heart. I sat in the same woods, now with carved stones amongst the trees and did my own contemplating, as I have done two other times in this life. I guess I just wanted to shout it out (which I would never do because it is impolite), so I did the next best thing, I wrote it out as if I live within a library, which I feel I do from time to time. I like the quiet. I admire the Dead for being quiet. This world is full of far too much noise to think and to consider.

         Your opinion, but my blog, boy. – Amorella.

         I contemplated the Dead, Amorella, I thought that was your territory.

         Do I detect sarcasm and anger?

         I don’t know. As my friend Alta might say to me, “You have issues.” She is very funny when she says it because it is fully honest and open.

         You do have issues. Who doesn’t?

         Do you have issues too?

         What do you think, boy? Post. – Amorella. 

Notes - research the worthwhile fictions / go to Malory, Tennyson & White

         Cold morning at 41 degrees but inside it is a pleasant 71. Further ‘inside’ it feels good to be alive another day. This writing I do is a personal project which I am continuing willing to share but it is difficult for me to imagine why anyone would really be interested in what an old man consider is important in his life. I am reminded of when I was five and six in particular and would come up with projects in imagination to help me pass the time while growing into the age of seven and so on until the high school years when growing took on the added adolescent dimension. From then on the multidimensional tasks of education, finding a mate, building a savings for a family, a child for loving and raising, retirement and time for a writing project or two. That’s pretty much my life in a nutshell. As my friend Alta would say, “I have issues to work out.” Writing is as good a way as any as it does no harm to myself or anyone else as far as I can see. That’s my thinking before nine this morning. I am content with just being here (alive on Earth).

         You are surprised at your morning mellowness as there appears to be no particular reason for it.

         Mid-afternoon. You spent some time digging up and filtering out small stones and chips from the ground where the tree set in the front yard. Time for dirt and grass seed as it is to rain on Monday and Tuesday. The grass needs mowed but it can wait until tonight or tomorrow.

         I enjoy getting my hands in the dirt; I used an old stick to stir up the soil (which is better than I thought it would be) and just my hands to filter it. Enjoyment in its own right. I think it is built in to be caretakers of the Earth in any small way – such as a small tree or plant in a pot of soil; and I also think we should be caretakers of our species also. That’s just me though and I am rather out of touch with reality when it comes to this matter as close friends do not agree with me. “You don’t pay for the goods, you don’t eat.” That’s the extreme though I completely understand the sentiment. It is a dog eat dog world out there. Individual responsibility for others young or old though has humane considerations that have to be accepted by society and money cannot be the balancing point.

         Money makes the human society go round, boy. It is the key to riches for those with that need its security for family, state and culture alike. Work provides the bread and butter as well as clothing and shelter, and as you have said before – self-dignity. Somebody has to pay for it. No sense in making a fool out of yourself, well, no more than already necessary. –  Amorella.

         What makes the Dead go round?

         In context, friends and fellow members of the species. Necessities are provided. – Amorella.

         Remind yourself of Arthur in book three and do some reading on the worthwhile fictions already out there. You’ll feel better doing so. Carol is talking to Alta but it is getting time for the news and evening. Later, dude. Post. – Amorella.

         Twenty-two hundred hours plus three and I cannot find Merlyn and King Arthur together in any of the first three books. Arthur is mention a couple of times that is all. I don’t see a way to bring the two together in the story as much as I like the idea. I am ready to drop it and move on in the direction we are going.

         And, what direction is that, young man? – Amorella.

         I don’t know but you can’t suddenly add a relationship to a story like this.

         One is taken away in life, one can be added in fiction. – Amorella.

         We don’t do things like that here, Amorella. Taking the role of an editor I cannot see how a proper transition can be made without diluting what is already written. I am not going to add a character out of respect for my friend’s death. It seems shallow and selfish. Wishful thinking on my part. If there is a continued relationship to be had I can wait until I might join him in the great beyond. This Dead business is fiction and real death is not. It’s just fiction, Amorella, a set of stories serendipitously set up along the way. I liked the serendipity idea early on because that is how life appears to be – events just happen to coincide with other events as people appear to coincide almost randomly, but not quite. This is a theory – that randomness is not such for Angelic creatures or G---D. No one lives long enough to catch this, but at least in my fictions it can appear as fact.

         The late Thomas Robert Pringle plays Merlyn and you play the very late once king, Arthur.

         I don’t see how this can possibly work.

         That’s the fun in it, boy. I know you can’t. Such troubles you have to endure. – Amorella.

         I will do some spot checking on the fictional relationship of Arthur and Merlyn. Readers may have read Malory, Tennyson and White. Plus, all those movies like “Excalibur”.

         Make a list of the popular works. I’ll pick the ones you need to glance over. You’re retired, you have the time. Post. – Amorella. 

Notes - the Upper East Coast / let the concepts settle / present circumstances

         You arrived home by 1645 hours last night. Stopped to pick up the mail, grocery, unpacked, sorted out clothes for washing, etc. We’ll run through your short day-by-day notes and then have a talk before setting this material online. While on the way home through New York you and Carol stopped at a rest stop as a fellow was coming out and you said to Carol, “He looks like Bob.” She said, “Yes, he does.” Nothing more said on the subject but you are missing the idea of seeing him and getting together as you have.

         It is in the first three books, Amorella – Robert and Richard heading off to Taco Bell for some lunch and an hour or two of discussion on writing, literature, films and women – usually a combination of those and assorted other subjects like politics and hypocrisy.

         We will switch some characters a bit to allow you and Bob to continue your one on one relationship. – Amorella.

         I am thankful for this, though I had not consciously thought it possible. Who is the “We”? You and who else? – This sounds arrogant of me, especially in this context. I am please that such a connection, even imaginary, is possible. I miss the man.

         Below are the reversed dates during the trip to the Upper East Coast:

12 September 11

Beautiful morning for a quick drive to Concord. Stopped at Alcott’s then to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery to meet the authors, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Alcott and Emerson. Sitting in the Visitor’s lot waiting for Carol and Alta.

Night. Carol is watching the Republican debate on CNN as you are staying at a Best Western in Utica, New York. You had lunch at Via Lago, a quaint little deli in downtown Lexington after visiting several special places in Concord. You dropped Craig and Alta off at the La Quinta in Sumerville (North Boston), took I-93 South to I-90 West near fifteen hundred hours and stopped for the night at nineteen hundred hours.

Your soul lingers up on ‘Author’s Ridge’ in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. You have a photo or two I would like you to put in your blog once you are home – no need to put any of this online before hand.

        

11 September 11

Ten-thirty and we are sitting in Theatre One at the JFK Presidential Library at the beginning of our tour.

You are more impressed than you are letting on, orndorff. You remember John Kennedy and Robert who you and Carol worked for when he was running for President. 

We finished the exhibits and are in the Pavilion awaiting a quick lunch at the JFK Cafe. Watching the planes coming in for a landing at Logan International with the flag at half staff as today is ten years later from where most of us older folks can remember where we were and what we were doing just like we did on 22 November 1963.

You remember as do many others around the world. Nothing new under the sun, boy. People, living and dead, are always remembering. Helps to sort out what time does not do, stand still. – Amorella.

The others are looking at the surrounding sites, the old school house and the gristmill and the chapel. I am sitting in the parking lot of Longfellow’s Wayside Inn where we just had an excellent Sunday  dinner. They were most accommodating. I explained we were from Ohio and that we stayed here in summer of 1972. I had clam chowder, chicken potpie, squash, mashed potatoes and for dessert, Indian pudding (pumpkin bread and molasses) with ice cream on top.  The others had something similar while Carol had fish. Most excellent, as it also was earlier in life.

You are feeling heartansoul thankful for such a good day as this but don’t know how to express it when you already have. – Amorella.

The brochure from the Wayside Inn says this about its history.

“America’s oldest operating Inn has offered hospitality to ten generations of wayfarers. When first licensed, it was called ‘How’s Inn’ or ‘The Red Horse’ by Colonel Ezekiel How when he succeeded his father in 1746. After publication of “The Tales of a Wayside Inn” in 1863, the ‘Red Horse Inn’ became Longfellow’s Wayside Inn by popular acceptance. Colonel How led Sudbury farmers to Concord on April 19^th, 1775.”

Dusk. You just received word from Jean Noble Litzinger that your old high school friend Bill Miller is in the hospital and not doing well. You wish him well because there isn’t anything else you can do. – Amorella.

The other day while traveling from Acadia to Boston Alta (the retired social worker) used two words that caught your attention because there are times in the blog you would have used them had they come to mind: “internalize” and “projecting”. Today, while at the Kennedy Library on the campus of the University of Massachusetts-Boston you regenerated what was already internalized about the Kennedy years. Within an hour of leaving the JFK Presidential Library you read in the Wayside Inn brochure:

“THE WAYSIDE INN is a non-profit educational and charitable trust. The original trust was established by Mr. Henry Ford in 1946. After a disastrous fire the Inn was restored in 1956 by a grant from the Ford foundation.

Presently the Inn is administered by a non-paid board of trustees who are dedicated to preserving the Inn as an historical shrine. Revenue from the Inn’s operation is used to maintain and continue its restoration.”

When you read the above you thought immediately: ‘Why couldn’t insurance companies, all health oriented private companies, be non-profit?’ That’s where you are, boy. Don’t let go of it. – Amorella.

Tomorrow we are off to Concord and Lexington after we check out of our motel, then we drop off our good friends, Craig and Alta Brelsford, at their Boston motel for tomorrow night for their flight out of Logan and return to Tucson on Tuesday. We will then head west on I-90, stop for the night, and return to Cleveland Tuesday evening.

You spent a good half hour studying Emerson’s lecture on Transcendentalism and come away suddenly feeling understood by a dead man. – Amorella

It sounds as though I am a fool, which upon circumstances such as this, I cannot deny. I have no idea if Emerson would understand my thoughts, it is “transference” in that I should be understanding Emerson not the other way around. Such arrogance and silliness on my part. Trying to become wiser I become more foolish. This shows me my true self-centeredness that I cannot help but to admit.

No argument from me on this, boy. You can sleep through it. You can sleep through most anything. – Amorella.

10 September 11

Today we took a six and a half hour Boston tour from Waltham and returned to our motel at Waltham. Our guide was Rob, a very informative and entertaining fellow of some personal honesty, enough to make him delightful.

After this, and later, supper again at the Naked Fish. And, after setting up tomorrow’s schedule for the Kennedy Library at the University of Massachusetts on the GPS you began reading on Concord and the Transcendentalists. You set out to copy Emerson’s lecture (1832) “The Transcendentalist” after scanning several googled sources. Your soul moves your renewed enthusiasm tonight. Enough to rest on. – Amorella.

9 September 11

Left the cabin at 0820 hours and arrived in Salem in time for the 1300 hour tour of the House of Seven Gables. Very interesting and a fun visit as I haven’t been here since 1992 with Kim and Carol and I visited the House in the summer of 1972. Quite delightful; and we also stopped to visit Old Burying Point (Charter Street Cemetery). Any easy trip on Rt. 128 to Waltham where we are staying for the next three nights at the Best Western Motel. A very good fish dinner at the nearby Naked Fish Restaurant. Tomorrow we have breakfast provided and a special (to us) six and a half hour tour of Boston proper.

8 September 11

Sitting on the shore of Long Pond. Quite serene – could be in Canada just as easily. Mud beach but no swimming allowed. Craig is looking at maps – the others coming back from a walk. Will be looking for lunch shortly. We ate at a quaint little place called Cafe Dry Dock in Southwest Harbor. Most everyone got haddock sandwiches or chicken salad sandwiches. “Cabin” and chats around the dining room table.

7 September 11

Drove though Seal Harbor to see fancy homes, ala Martha Stewart. Looked to buy one on Cooksey Drive, “Ravenscleft”, but at 7.5 million it is a bit over our heads and feet. Had lunch (again) at Jordan Pond House. Popover, lobster quiche, veggies, and blueberry crisp alamode (again).

6 September 11

You are at the east parking lot off Main Street looking towards the many sailboats in Bar Harbor. The others are shopping the great variety of enterprising local commerce painted a variety of calm or bright colors; this is after eating at Geddi’s. You and Carol shared an “Italian” thin-crusted wood fired pizza, you with a side of clam chowder and Carol with a garden salad. The fishy salt air mingles with common sense and turns the nose a crank but otherwise not too bad a place. I was somewhat expecting a Provincetown the way I remember it from 1964 but, alas, that was not to be. Subtle differences exist comparing the Maine rocky coast with the California rocky coast. Subtle enough to notice but not to articulate. It was a rainy drizzle of a morning but now the sun is peaking out from lifting fog.

5 September 11

Mid-morning. You are sitting at the Visitor’s Center handicap parking at Acadia National Park while the others walk up the fifty-two steps to the great woods surrounding the center.

Another outlook ‘Schooner Head” but the fog has rolled down below us – saw a lady in a red dress or robe standing on the deck of a very large Maine styled house a hundred feet overlooking the rocky cliff below. Very cool almost ancient looking unless you are from southwest England – then it would look like home in the mirror.

Another stop, “Sand Beach” which is 500 feet down. I’ve seen a beach before so the others are heading out. This is a larger island than I thought it would be, higher too.

***                 

You are upset with yourself for mentioning the four by two by two foot granite stone blocks along the park road would make good gravestones and that at the “Sand Beach” parking lot you saw a fellow who looked like Bob, with white beard and all crossing in front of you.

I am because although I said ‘gravestone’ as a joke it didn’t seem like one actually – I thought Carol and I could have a common flat stone as far as length of the stone would be. The man did look a bit like Bob body-wise in his healthier days of a couple of years ago, and his face and beard and hat was very much Bob-like.

A few more stops, more ocean, more rocks, more trees or more trees, more rocks, more waves crashing into and up rocks and more ocean. The views are getting to be ditto-makers; however, the wind is brisk and cool and very, very autumn comfortable as I sit along the left side of the road looking at the mountains ahead. Good day so far.

4 September 11

For breakfast we ate at the Savory’s which was most organic and quite good, especially the whole grain pancakes; and then a good drive from Buffalo to Freeport, Maine where we spent the night at a Super 8 Inn. We had supper at Naked Barbeque which similar to Smokey Bones and Hogg’s. Again, we are quite comfortable after our local sojourn to the L. L. Bean outdoor clothing ‘monster-sized’ store with free shipping.

3 September 11

Twenty– fifty seven hours and you are in the near back handicap parking lot of L. L. Bean and have been listening to the last forty-five minutes a free “America” concert (about forty yards from the car) on this Saturday night. Lots of people. Carol and Alta are in-store shopping. Concert is winding down with the last song. People coming out hauling their L. L. Bean camping chairs like they’ve been to a state fair. A most awesome Saturday night in Freeport, Maine.

We stayed at a Red Roof Inn in Buffalo which was fine after we switched rooms because the toilet tank had no water in it. Good deal, ten dollars off and an upgrade in room for our inconvenience. 

*** ***

         Late morning. Quite cool and cloudy early, now sunshine and blue sky. The cat’s nature is content to watch a few leaves float to the ground. Hunting instinct, you think. Not unlike you and Bob on the search for the Great White Page that needs some harpoon-fed ink for a filling.

         I bought a quill at the House of Seven Gables. A reminder of what a writer is – a feather with a shaped point. I used one once to see what it was like. I used number two pencils freely. Fountain pens, ballpoint and felt tip pens and have settled on keyboards though I still carry a ballpoint or pencil and a piece of paper. Pencil and paper set beside the lamp next to our bed. Pencil and paper also set near the tub in the bathroom as well as in both cars. I like to be ready if something crosses my mind, something important to me, something curious more than profound. Bob was more focused and thoughtful and subtle with his word choices. Pray tell, who will the characters be that I might, through imagination, delight in Bob’s company once again.

         Merlyn and Arthur, my boy. You being Arthur who is more fitting to your nature as a character.  – Amorella.

         Two likely characters of fiction if ever there were any. I like it already. I am surprised though that Merlyn has a role in the first Rebellion. How can this be carried by the legs of reason?

         It is a matter of science, old man, the observer effects that which is witnessed; in this case even if it is after the fact by human standards.

         You rattle the iron chain of events and it vibrates to the first link.

         That’s the way it is in these books, my man. A whispered aside in physics while quietly turning the page. Post and let the concepts settle. – Amorella.


 Mid-afternoon. You just finished a few hour job working on the crab apple tree. When you were gone a storm blew down the remainder main four-inch stalk trunk which Tim King graciously cut up and removed from the grass. You were left with a three foot tall, eight and a half inch diameter trunk which you finally took down using a combination of a small ‘branch trimming’ electric chain saw, a hatchet used mainly as a wedge, a hand band saw, and a sledge hammer which eventually knocked it down. You are waiting for the battery powered chain trimmer to better trim the branches down for city pick up tomorrow or Monday.

         After 2150 hours. We watched a few shows we’d cable-copied while gone. However, after watching the shows after the fact does nothing to the shows.

         It does something to the machinery. Physics happens with a click of the remote.– Amorella.

         We are talking passed one another here but I will sleep on the concept of Merlyn ‘affecting’ the outcome of the First Rebellion after the fact.

         Obviously, without the first rebellion one cannot have the second. – Amorella.

        

         I reviewed the chapters and found ‘Arthur’ is indeed mentioned in chapter four, scene three:

**

Clotho’s voice alone and within, “In your dreams, Merlyn, only in your braiding dead man’s dreams.”  

"I thought in the concept of will be but the concept may be, came instead."

A new voice says, “Merlyn, welcome.”

“I must have swum here,” replied Merlyn. “Are you who I think you are?”  

“I am Arthur.”  

“Where am I?”  

“In Avalon, where else? You will enjoy this Place of the Dead where things are born again. It is the Fortunate Isles, like home but with contentment and peace.”  

**

         I find it strange that Merlyn must ask Arthur where he [Merlyn] is. Yet it is obvious that Merlyn knows much more than Arthur at this point.

         Under the circumstances this works well does it not? – Amorella.

          It has a different meaning under present circumstances.

         As does the book, orndorff. Post. Sleep well. – Amorella. 

Notes - A Good Death

        Mid-morning. You were returning home from running last minute errands when Patti called to say Bob passed away peacefully last night. An hour before daughter Susan put on a new CD of music and he did not move other than to give her a thumbs up. This was about the time you added the poem and within the hour posted it. Now you wonder what the ‘jolt’ was, was it something with Yeats’ poem or was it Bob passing by?

         This is conjecture or at the most coincidence, Amorella. I like to think it is a kind hopeful thought at the very least and let it go at that. What a relief to be out of that worn body of his. I am glad he is at peace. And, as always, I wish him the best. Our trip to Maine will not be so nearly memorable as his to “solid ground”.

         Alas, the thoughts are for you now, boy. A good place to think, “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and give unto G---D what is His,” as a metaphor, of course.

         I would not accept this as anything less as a metaphor.

         For this you have good reason. Post. No more today. – Amorella. Title this A Good Death and begin to let it go from mind to heart where it will settle in comfort. – Amorella.