Tues 25 July 67 4:30 AM
Looks like I won’t be getting to bed tonight either! Didn’t get underway with my packing till 3;15 because I was saying goodbye to everyone in the smoker. Performance went great – ballet especially! Last applause rang in our ears. Black velvet curtains swung together and the major domo enfolded the cancan dancer in his arms. It’s a wrap! Strike! (Means something different in the theatre.) Felt so nostalgic taking off my satin & feathers! After strike cancan dancer eluded the majordomo, went back to the dorm to say goodbye to Jodie and meet her folks. Farm folk! I am so ashamed of my snobbishness! Robin insisted on a Last Walk. I’d actually believe he just had rotten luck to fall in love with me – if he hadn’t SAID he wants me because he can’t HAVE me! Sick! We sat on the stone steps and I stared into his crooked face (he is so much handsomer onstage!) He still doesn’t understand why I wouldn’t kiss him. What’s it matter to me? It mattered. He will NEVER understand but he insisted we correspond. He also demanded to drive me to the airport. Uh oh. What if he kidnaps me? My frugality will be the death of me! Swimming last night in the Lourdes pool – skinny dip! Just me & Jodi playing “Loch Ness monster!” Nice nuns caught us and showed us the door. All the cancan girls met in the smoker and munched cherries. Raced up to the fourth floor sundeck to watch the sun come up over the bluffs. Wake ding in huge breakfast – hot chocolate, mushroom omelet and doughnuts! Picked up my tickets from the travel agent – they are incredibly cheap – I don’t understand it at all. Three hours sleep in the afternoon. Parents called from Block Island where they are stranded by rough winds so Mom can’t come. I wasn’t depending on her so unsurprised. No point going to bed now! Second sunrise in a row! Shared with Joan Peska who suffers from an abscessed tooth. This summer’s been worth it. 1) take bath 2) clean room 3) finish packing 4) iron dress My tea is cold. I can sleep on the plane. Delaware River aboard the Gryphon – Thurs 3 Aug 67 I am in the worst mood ever! IMPOSSIBLE to write on a boat! Difficult to read –out of the question to THINK! Too damn much going on. Sails to put up and take down, dishes to get out and then wash. Our one day of “respite” we had to completely scrub the boat! (Dad said it looked like a “laundry scow” with all our panties flying in the breeze. We finally seem to be into the “charming” part of the voyage but now I am depressed by the backlog of letters that I owe. I’d rather write here. I have enough for 100 pages but doubt I’ll ever get them down. Struggling with War & Peace but its not working. Not easy like Anna Karenina. At 36 feet his boat is too small! (No wonder Morgan jumps in the water.) Damn flies are eating me! Hideous heat, humidity and flies. I will reread Sherlock Holmes and Sherrill’s Accidental President – can’t manage intellectual fare. Called Genevieve and Kent once. She very perky, Mom very sad; Dad very “hail fellow well met.” We are entering headed for the Chesapeake. By sheerest chance we met up with Paul Carnahan I Brigantine (where his father lives.) He is adorable. He wanted to show off his father’s house (which he designed) Dad used the high-powered telescope while I took a HT BATH! Bliss! Paul introduced us to his nephew John who seemed very interesting. He’s only 19 and already out of college! He rides a unicycle. Later – the awful day has ended as awful days must. I did cry once but only Avril saw me and she promised not to tell. Every day seems to contain so many failures. My goodbye with Robin was horrible. He cried! He told me I’d never loved anyone – I didn’t argue. He gave me a picture of us onstage together in Mousetrap but when he was gone I threw it away – it was just too painful. He also gave me a package I unwrapped on the plane – Khalil Gibran’s the Prophet! Awful stuff! The epitome of false philosophy. Some people are so intellectually desperate (but I have the sense NOT to tell them I despise them for it!!!) I think I HAVE loved someone but at the moment I can’t remember who! Sounds ridiculous I know but the problem is you keep growing up and then you’re a different person! For example, part of what I needed in love was wanting to feel protected (Shawn). It’s not that I don’t want that anymore, I just see it’s illusory. (I loved him until he was mean to me.) I loved Reed until I saw he was an idiot! I think I may have even loved Beales before I saw his limitations! So the problem isn’t that I CAN’T love but that I love TOO MUCH! I don’t like this reputation for cruelty I am getting but I can’t figure how to dodge it. Why do I HAVE to fall in with what someone else wants to do? With Robin it is particularly stark BECAUSE I DON’T EVEN LOVE HIM. But in the struggle of wills I AM SUPPOSED TO LOSE and its all I can do to resist! And I thought I was so strong! Now I am NOT looking forward to senior year. I can’t go through this again! Fortunately Plumly boys are too cagey to tell you they despise you for kissing them! But the emotional stakes keep going higher and so does MY need for love. I can be generous if the guy can be BUT THEY AREN’T RAISED TO BE GENEROUS! Phil was. Reed was but it may have just been his weakness. Received a card from Dan Devereux who’s already graduated offering to introduce me to the Villanova party scene! Wish I didn’t know about his shenanigans with Casey so I sent him a Diplomatic Letter. I think he’s just using me to get back at her. Wrote a long letter to Robin saying it was just too explosive a summer and everyone was on edge and overworked. He’s threatening to come see me in Philadelphia! I tried to pretend we get a “semester abroad!” (When desperate you can ONLY lie.) I’d like him to just can it on the love stuff. I said we still have to survive college (although he says he’s going to the Goodman Theatre School.) Thanked him for Khalil (who after all tells us to be SEPARATE STRINGS on the same instrument!!!) and moved on to disabuse him of the “glamours” of sailing. How glamorous is it having to fish curler pins out of the bilge pump? Said I was looking forward to hearing from John Carnahan who promised to write! Mom said of course he’s not going to contact me because I don’t wear a bra! He isn’t going to get into “that!!” Just when I was starting to like her again! Last night we saw Julius Caesar at Cape May Courthouse – excellent! 121 W. Penn – Phila Pa – Sun Aug 13, 67 Good cruise – SO glad it’s over. When I am too much around people my thinking clouds and I literally start to babble. Remember how my motto used to be Xaipe? Well, mere happiness will no longer do – you certainly don’t find it by looking for it. My new motto comes from the lips of Satan himself (cover your ears Sister Mary Rosycheeks) Non serviam. So there. It would look good on a coat of arms. (Crossed goose and dragon RAMPANT!) Sitting at my father’s desk – an ugly, cold Victorian secretary under a good shot of me wielding a boathook at Hydra. When Aiken said he didn’t like it I refused to agree with him – he was mean about everything - but he’s right! Still, in 10 short years he’ll be fat and bourgeois and this desk is where the stamps & envelopes are! This tea is no good (it’s the water.) Everyone hates Johnson – he is attacked on all sides but landlady told Dad she can’t rent to West Indians because it would “ruin” the neighborhood! She’s not prejudiced – it’s other people. Thank God we are only renting. Let’s get out of here to Pewter Hill as fast as possible! It looks like we will be having Thanksgiving and Christmas in that big, beautiful house. I would invite Aynsley but she’s not sure she can stand to see us in her grandmother’s house. Read Milne’s delightful Once On a Time and saw John Mills’ The Family Way. Reading Ceram’s Gods Graves & Scholars and wonder if I’ll ever finish it.
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Alysse Aallyn
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