I curse my Fordham-Jesuit education every day for the blinders it imposed, and for all we did not have time to learn because we were kept so busy on religion. But they did teach discipline, fierce discipline, because of which I was able to live life, make a life, as a free lance: 12 non fiction books, 18 novels, one book of poetry and God knows how many magazine articles. Taught the most rigid principles of ethics also: what is right and what is wrong. For instance, if one applies these principles to today's world, lying is everywhere and always ugly, reprehensible. Habitual lying can never be acceptable, can never be condoned, on any grounds, not ever. On balance a successful education, I suppose.
2 Comments
I am depressed, suffering, and the reason is Trump. A general overall depression caused not so much by the awful man himself as by the 53 republican senators who pretend they don't see him as awful, who seem sure to let him get away with it all rather than risk losing the votes of his followers. Perhaps one can accept Trump as a crippled human being and hardly responsible for his awfulness. But how do you accept those 53 other people, his enablers, supposedly upstanding senators, pretending to be role models for us all.
This is my country we are talking about. Impossible for me to concentrate on anything else. We spend six or eight hours a day glued to the impeachment trial, starting with the New York Times each morning, then the TV. Ordinary chores lie there undone. Can't make myself answer the mail. Can't read a book--the words mean nothing to me. I've been trying to write a new poem for weeks, it might get me out of my depression, but nothing comes, and after a short while each day I give up and go downstairs and watch the trial on TV again--frustrated hours focused on the lying four-flusher who is our president, plus his "noble"enablers who are perhaps even worse. My poor country. Where is the good life we lived on the Cote d'Azur? How I envy our friends there, the travels they take around southern France and elsewhere, the life they live far from here. Life outside the reach of American TV. People have been bitching to me for years about France's problems, France's politicians. I always gave the same answer: France's problems may be bad but they are not in the same league as ours. Especially now. We have the painters in the house. What a mess. You can imagine. Otherwise we are both in good shape physically. But then there is Trump...... A meager year, literarily speaking. Total output: 5 poems, about 100 lines in all. Here is the fifth of them. As always I had no idea as I worked it over and over, whether it was any good or not.
SAFETY FIRST The classic lure Man's eternal quest How to feel secure No one ever knows what path is best There are those who mostly stay home It can be unsafe to roam The light might fail The train derail The untoward strike The ice is always thinner than they'd like Life seems an ambush surrounded by confusion Safety, they hold, is an illusion Voices nearby may urge full speed ahead They stick to their sensible plan instead Others never stop glancing around Searching for excitement, surprise Treasure to dazzle the eyes Searching wherever the new might be found This can entail a certain risk A bit of danger to make life brisk Never mind the bill Beyond the next hill May lie riches untold Be bold Ignore all fears Safety happens between the ears It's almost a dare Pay the fare Something splendid awaits you out there Robert Daley December 2019 Andre Daguin, 84, possibly the most famous of the great French chefs, died two days ago in his apartment in Auch in the southwest. He gave me a part of himself and a part of France I could have got in no other way. Ours may have seemed an unlikely friendship but it lasted 50 years, and I am bereft. I have been trying to write about him for two days, and this is the best I can do for now.
We are now back home after 8 days in California for the wedding of our granddaughter Galen McNeil to her college boyfriend, whose name is Connor Pierson. They have been together since Stanford where they met. A long enough time. Both are 29. They got married in a rather sumptuous garden in Malibu on the edge of the sea. Three days of celebrations. About 150 guests, more than half of them being Daleys or Piersons. I've never felt so "family", the warmth, the weight, the security of each other. We sat with the groom's parents at the wedding dinner, and at the dinner the night before with the grandparents. Grandpa is a former pastor and he performed the ceremony. I felt like the patriarch through all this, and I suppose I was. Older than the white haired grandfather, anyway, for I asked him.
We had a hotel room overlooking the beach at Santa Monica. Widest beach I've ever seen. At least 300 yards of sand stretching from the road to the Pacific. Warm and sunny throughout. The water much too cold for swimming, but my brother in law, Paul Fennelly, tried it and both his hearing aids popped out and were lost. For us the second wedding of the year. Her older sister Avery was married in June. Very happy year for the grandparents, but a bit of a strain here and there. A bit costly too. Other than that, nothing much to report. That's enough, I guess.
And so we leave La Belle France, leave Nice, where we have lived at least half of every year for most of our adult lives. Our apartment is empty, every room cleaned out, our furniture and now us en route to America--perhaps never to return. Never? A logical thought at the ages we have reached: in a month's time I will be 89 years old, Peggy only a year less. Talk about heavy hearts. Her's more than mine, I suppose, though mine too. She was born here, started school here, had her first heartthrobs here. I came as a 23 year old would-be writer following in the footsteps of Fitzgerald and Hemingway, my idols at the time, and I met her the afternoon of the first day. Three months later on no money we married here, and sailed back to America for the first time. A few years after that, having landed a job with the New York Times, only a sort of a job at first, we moved back to Nice with our two little girls, and my literary career at last took root. In a very real sense it was in Nice that I became a man.
In France the elevators are all minuscule. When furniture goes in or out, the movers lean a derrick against the building up as high as the balcony, in our case six flights up, then hoist a platform up the derrick. The furniture goes out onto the balcony, gets lifted onto the platform, and is lowered to the van. And so, for as long as there was something to sit on, we sat there and watched what seemed like our whole lives go out the window. Perhaps I will try to write more about Nice, leaving Nice, tomorrow. The jumble of emotions. But that's all I can do for now. Does anyone ever talk about, or even think about GOING MY WAY anymore? This was the most monumental film of my boyhood, and also of its time. Bing Crosby playing a priest. Won colossal box office receipts plus all seven of the principal Oscars in 1944. Crosby was already king of the world by then. Even the Oscar for best actor couldn't much increase his splendor, but the film could and did almost smother him under vast heapings of additional, unconditional love.
Because I have been reading about all this in SWINGING ON A STAR, the second volume of Gary Giddens excellent biography of Crosby and his times. I got more and more curious. There were many fascinating pages on GOING MY WAY from concept to screen, including the belief by all involved that they were making a great, great movie. Finally curiosity got the better of me, and last night I called up the film on Amazon Prime. Paid $3.98 for it. What schmaltz. Pure cornball from beginning to end. Every scene so obvious, so fraudulent I almost felt embarrassed for all those people. I didn't note any acting on Crosby's part. Seemed to me he just walked through it playing Bing Crosby. How times--and perceptions--do change. Seventy four years ago it would have been hard to find anyone who didn't come out of the theater with tears in his eyes, who didn't agree with the makers: a great, great movie. And, seventy four years ago Bing Crosby was possibly the most famous face and voice in the world, and certainly the most famous entertainer. Perhaps I should remind you of all that too. I was a professional writer for over 50 years, during which time I heard much about "writer's block". I wrote 30 books. I wrote as well dozens of articles for most of the major American magazines. The day after I finished one project I would start another. A writer is a workman like any other I would say, if asked. He must make a living every day. Writer's block, whatever it might be, was for other writers, not me.
And then-- I had begun to write poems on the side. Last winter I saw that I now had 33 poems written over the past eight years. They would make a slim volume--about 90 pages, I judged. I wanted to show them around, as any writer would, but how, where? Offer them to a commercial house? Never occurred to me. Every book is an investment by the publisher, each one a gamble. Publishers bet on sure things, or almost sure things. None was likely to bet on the verses of an 87 year old unpublished poet like me. So I published them myself. They're on sale at Amazon at $3.99. When the author's copies came I was as elated as always in the past. Once again The Word had been made Flesh. I sniffed the new book, rifled the pages, read and admired one or two of the poems. And, for some seconds, admired myself. The next day I sat down to write another poem. But nothing came. Not a word. Nor the next day Nor the next. This went on for eight months. Writer's block indeed. In the past I never felt pity for all those other poor slobs. Now at last I did. At the end of all those weeks, words began to come. Finally. And I wrote a poem called "Nostalgia" which follows. I offer it to you. If it's lousy, please tell me. I'll accept praise too. Nostalgia The half forgotten moment That fills the head unbidden Former time and place Vivid trace The rest hidden A distorted view The world askew Nostalgia When singers sang truer Honey was sweeter Boxers hit harder The world in past tense A world that seems to have made more sense Some prefer it The past crowds their pockets Fingers sift it like coins Others abhor the nostalgic song The past to them was long Hills were steeper Nights darker Pain deeper More like a bombed out house Open to the rains Nothing fond remains Nostalgia A private museum A row of cases Forgotten faces Memories on display. The past under glass All this did come to pass Can't be judged Glass too smudged Can barely see inside A life that long ago died Or so you can claim Nostalgia Has been called a mystic cloud As enveloping as a shroud A dangerous place Can erase Misplace Deface Disgrace It's like unveiling a statue An over the shoulder view What you see depends on you. A mood Can create hunger, but leaves behind no food A seductive liar No emotion it can't mime I didn't get it right back then Maybe this time Nostalgia is an illusion Leads only to confusion Better to count what can be counted Money earned Lessons learned Shine up any trophies won Measure what can be measured and you're done The rest is not real Robert Daley Nov. 2018 With Nostalgia out of the way, I sat down to start another new poem, but nothing came. Not an idea, line, word. Day after the same. It's been 3 weeks now. Writer's Block was back. Hello again Writer's Block. And so, again, to Nice. We've been here four days this time and will stay till June. To come into these streets is always a kind of homecoming to me. A vivid experience still. I was 23 the first time, an ignorant, naive boy, stepping out into the rest of the world for the first time, and I was instantly dazzled by what I found here--a girl of course, but much much else, places and people, an entire way of life that I had not known existed. Later I worked for the New York Times here, and later still I wrote many books and articles rooted in Nice or in surrounding France. All that is over, I have become strictly a poet now, if I am anything classifiable, it is harder to do and pays nothing, but we still come here twice each year for three months each time, the girl and I, her home town and mine too in a way. Which makes for an expensive and frenetic life style that people, scratching their heads, often ask us about. Are there not problems? Of course there are, each time problems. The money, of course, the jet lag. Also, if you abandon any home for three months there will be technical problems to cope with when you come back. This time we found TV and internet kaput. We were four days without, grumbling the whole time, getting more and more frantic. Guy came this morning. Couldn't have been nicer. Fixed it in a trice. Which is why you are reading these lines now and not four days ago.
|
Archives
December 2019
Categories |