~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There is a vine, Growing on my garden wall. And it is brown And withered in the fall. And in the spring, its leaves are green And blossoms all a-flame, But spring or fall, Still I love you just the same. There is a gate, Halfway down my garden wall, And in the night, I lock it bolts and all. And in the day it's open wide To all who would come through. But day or night, It is never locked for you. There is a tree Growing by my garden gate, And year by year, It seems to stand and wait, And here am I beneath the tree, For I am waiting, too. But oh my love, I will always wait for you. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When I was a child sitting in Church, I used to look around at the solemnity of faces and think that everybody must know some great thing that they had neglected to tell me, even though I had been to Sunday school and day school and all that. Nothing that I had learnt in those schools or at home could account, for me, for these reverent and ceremonious adult behaviors. The service of these behaviors had such a uniform gloss to it. To use the old childhood jeer, I thought I must have got dropped on my head as an infant, and some of the marbles fall out, and rolled under the crib. So, you see, I did not always generalize from my difficulties. It took a long time for me to find out that the uniformed gloss and the great secret, both of them cherished by stable sub-cultures, tended to serve as lids on underlying conflicts and disagreements, and that people who publicly believe in god can still whither in private despair, or suck the blood of their neighbors, or sell their souls to the devil. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There once was a girl In the olden days Grew weary of men With a roving gaze, Farewell, fickle lovers, Goodbye, goodbye, For I’m falling in love With the man in the sky. The man in the sky, He walks in haste, With three bright buckles Around his waste, With a Great Dog near And a Little Dog nigh, And a steady gleam In his golden eye The girl went out On a windy hill, And cried when the night Was dark and still: Come down, come down You man in the sky, Or else I am likely To pine and die. The man in the sky Didn't stop to talk, He went right on With his evening walk, And the Great Dog howled and the Little Dog whined, And the girl grew cold In the rising wind. She took to her bed, From the light of the sun, But when the sun His course had run, She went to her window So high, so high, And waited and watched Orion go by. The man in the sky He walked in haste, With three bright buckles Around his waist, And a Great Dog near And a Little Dog nigh, And a gleam for her In his golden eye. One night she stood On her window sill, And stepped right out On the highest hill, And climbed to the place Where the planets are, And jumped from there To the nearest star. She rocked in Cassiopeia's chair, And waked the Dragon And roused the Bear, And the Great Dog howled And the Little Dog whined, And the girl grew cold In the rising wind. She found Orion At last, and then She found he was Just like other men: When on his shoulder Her head she'd lay, His eye was a million miles away! The Great Dog howled And the Little Dog whined, And the girl grew cold In the rising wind, And the dragon snarled And the lion roared, And the stars flew by In a golden horde. This tale has a moral Brief to tell: And I won't go on, For you know it well: Remember the girl In the days gone by, who fell in love with The man in the sky She rocked in Cassiopeia's chair, And waked the dragon And roused the bear; And where they buried her I forget, But the man in the sky Isn't married yet. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A selection of short notes from Connie's journal * To whom it may concern: These notes, copied periodically from scraps and scrawls, may someday net you a tidy sum for post-mortem publication. If it turns out otherwise, please consider that the best ones died with me. Of the dead, nothing unless good. While writing codes for happiness, include health, creation, recognition and love. Insert a footnote to the effect that happiness can be obtained without taking it away from someone else. To look at a star, any star, and, in the light of infinite or finite space, to wonder about knowing and to know about wondering. A good melody must imply its own harmony. To test, whistle it a Capella. *

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I knew a man once very long ago, They say that he was born in Buffalo, But I don't believe it: Buffalo was never sufficiently Gilded and pearled, And this man turned out to be The playboy of the western world. Oh, he was elegant, Past all dreaming, He made seeming Seem like the real McCoy. All the sheiks of Araby, All the shahs of Persia, Couldn’t hold a candle to this boy. When he walked through a room, It looked as handsome As Napoleon’s tomb, And the Ford he rode, Could have been Mercedes-Benz A la mode. When he took me out, I didn’t doubt That we were going to the Astor Or the Sherry-Netherland. Spring seemed to linger In the little bunch of flowers He pressed into my hand (Little bunch of flowers, Didn’t cost a dime, Picked them in the park In their prime.) He went around With his heart unfurled, The one and only Playboy of the western world. You could fall in love With everyone you’d meet, When you walked with him Down the street. Playboys die young, this one did too: All worn out making dreams come true. And the world was grim again without him again, without him! For he was elegant, Past all dreaming, He made seeming Seem like the real McCoy. All the sheiks of Araby, All the shahs of Persia, Couldn’t hold a candle to this boy. When they took him out, I didn’t doubt That he was going to Miami Or some other wonderland. Spring seemed to linger In the little bunch of flowers I pressed into his hand (Little bunch of flowers, Didn’t cost a dime, Picked them in the park In their prime.) He went around With his heart unfurled The one and only Playboy of the western world. He was the playboy Of the western world, The playboy of the western world. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Shall we dine out, my dear, And dance the night away? Don't say you're tired; You know you haven't worked all day. We paid the rent finally, And we're free to be be free. Come now and waltz The Empty Pocket Waltz with me. Let's close our door And make believe we're all alone. Grandma can't hear, And Baby's sleeping like a stone. We paid the doctor his fee, And we're free to be be free. Come now and waltz The Empty Pocket Waltz with me. Why so unhappy? Don't be that way. Maybe they'll make me Queen for a day. You'll find a job, probably, Or be free, or be free. Come waltz again This Empty Pocket Waltz with me. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(poem, 1944) Ask me who made the world. Ask me who made the world, I will evert my eyes and laugh, I will clasp seven fingers to my lips and turn to someone else While you lean forward Trying to understand the muffled shouting of my mind. Notes from a drowned and living trumpet ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When my man goes to sea, He steps so high and free. I think I know as I watch him go That he has no need for me, for me. And when my man comes home And waits a while to roam, I think I see when he smiles at me That he's dreaming of the foam, the foam. I'm not a pious Christian I do not go to mass, But I pray to Father Neptune To let him safely pass. I sing to the god With the three-pronged rod And the whiskers wild and free That I've got a man With a beard and a tan And a passion for the sea. He rides through the storm And the cold and the warm And he loves to risk his neck, And I like to know When he goes below That it's just below the deck. Oh, Neptune, Father Neptune I tell you fair and true: That if you should lose my sailor I'll sing no more to you. When he's home from sea He’s half with me and he's Gone when I close the door. And it's still his creed That he has no need Of a wife except on shore. I know it's the boat that keeps him afloat - - But I like to think it's me… And if it were not for this I would sink to the depths Of the sea ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ever since we met, The world's been upside down. And if you don't stop troubling me You'll drive me out of town. But if you go away, As trouble ought to do, Where will I find another soul, To tell my trouble to? My bed is made of stone, A star has burnt my eye, I'm going down to the willow tree And teach her how to cry! But if you go away, As trouble ought to do, Where will I find another soul, To tell my trouble to? They bid me wear my hat, Put on a nice new gown, I tossed my bonnet over the roof And I guess it won't come down. But if you go away, As trouble ought to do, Where will I find another soul, To tell my trouble to? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

---------------------------------- We go walking in the dark. We go walking out at night. And it's not as lovers go, Two by two, to and fro, But it's one by one, One by one in the dark. We go walking out at night. As we wander through the grass We can hear each other pass, But we're far apart, Far apart in the dark. We go walking out at night: With the grass so dark and tall We are lost past recall If the moon is down, And the moon is down. We are walking in the dark: If I had your hand in mine I could shine, I could shine, Like the morning sun - Like the sun. ----------------------------------

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The moon has no heart! Else why did she fly down the west of the sky When my lover and I had to part The moon has no heart How sly was her art To light up the night when our love was still bright But when from my side he did start The moon had no heart The moon has no heart! Else why did she fly down the west of the sky When my lover and I had to part The moon has no heart ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To use the technical Latin, my ailment seems to be half a nervous breakdown following a year or more of the inaudible screaming meemies. Toward the end of 1970 I began to realize that I might have to believe the unbelievable: that the basic nerve and will by which I had always been able to survive my difficulties might have worn out or broken and might not be readily reparable. I kept expecting a spontaneous remission; I kept telling myself that my job problems were remediable by a little extra effort-- just a matter of getting over the hump. When I finally realized that I should quit the Journal entirely, I still wanted to get the backlog cleared up and the records in my head down on paper and a reasonable situation presented to my successor. And this supposedly minor task became--unaccountably, irrationally--the one thing I couldn't get myself to do. In all this explication you will notice that I am not thoroughly intropunitive. I do think that a substantial part of my half-nervous-breakdown has stemmed from an unfortunate set of circumstances beyond my control. Though you will find it a futile exercise, I will be intropunitive to this extent: When I got the screaming meemies I should have screamed audibly and stamped my foot and insisted that something must be done. You know, or don’t know that one must keep the dignity of responsibility for one’s own acts. At least, that’s the only dignity I have been able to achieve in this world and I am extremely reluctant to let go of it. I guess one should have more than that one kind of dignity, and so be able to let go of that one kind at a critical moment and scream audibly and let one’s good friend help... I still believe that I must make do with what I have, even in an unkindly climate, and that the helpfulness of friends has limits which we all prefer not to recognize. Unkindly climate: so many of our institutions and arrangements, inhabited by humans, make only the tiniest allowances for the years of ebullience and the years of desperation which a human being is likely to encounter in his life. We cannot take full advantage of our ebulliences and we cannot reasonably survive our desperations. Perhaps this is only the jaundiced conclusion of an “unstable” personality. But there are an awful lot of us “unstable people”. Stability comes to mean no ebulliences as well as no despairs. The helpfulness of friends: in our particular society, social support of an individual in trouble sticks out like a sore thumb instead of being merged in the fabric. Trouble is thought of as non-routine, and helping a troubled person becomes a matter of much self-consciousness and conscience. This corrupts both the helper and the helped. “Corrupts” is perhaps too strong of a verb in many cases, and yet there is a reverberating disturbance in a relationship that changes from that of “equals” in some general sense, to that of helper and helped. I suppose that is expectable in a society that is primarily competition- oriented and success-oriented. There are a few, but very few, private philosophies that can contend against these pervasive orientations. And then you have to have a good combination of giver and receiver. The odds are huge. When one is in a state of some vigor, as I used to be, one can cope with these things, knocking off a chip here and drilling an anchor-hole there and slugging along as reasonably as possible. But a failure of will and nerve leaves one a victim of everything. Some evening next week I will go through my desk at the office and clear it out, and later I will be sorting out other papers at home because I am giving up my apartment. My sister-in-law dropped by last night when I was at the very bottom of my ditch of despair, and suggested that after twenty-six years of working life, a person may be entitled to one big splattery failure. I agree, but I wish it hadn't happened just now, with all the other difficulties the Center is having. I showed her the first six pages of this letter and she remarked on the neatness of the typing and the good quality of the writing. I guess it doesn't look or sound like the letter of a madwoman; that's the trouble with becoming irrational about just one area of one's life. People find it hard to believe that one can go just PARTLY mad, even though I suspect it happens very often to many people. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In between two tall mountains there's a place they call lonesome, Don't see why they call it lonesome, I'm never lonesome when I go there. See that bird, Sittin’ on my windowsill? He's singing “whippoorwill”, All the night through. See that brook, Runnin’ by my kitchen door? He couldn't talk no more, If it was you. Up that tree There's sort of a squirrel thing. Sounds just like we did When we were quarreling. In the yard, I keep a pig or two. They drop in for dinner Like you used to do. I don't stand In the need of company, With everything I see Talkin’ like you. Up that tree There's sort of a squirrel thing. Sounds just like we did When we were quarreling. You may think you left me all alone, But I can hear you talk Without a telephone. I don't stand In the need of company, With everything I see Talkin’ like you. See that bird, Sittin’ on my windowsill? He's singing “whippoorwill”, All the night through. Just “whippoorwill”, All the night through. In between two tall mountains, There's a place they call lonesome. Don't see why they call it lonesome, I'm never lonesome now I live there. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Handwritten on the copy: "8/10/74 - this was just one of several efforts, non adequate. A sample.") To anyone who ever asks, if I’m long unheard from: This is the thin-hard sublayer under all the parting messages I’m likely to have sent: Let me go, let me be if I can, let me not be if I can’t. For a number of years now, I’ve been the object of affectionate concern to my relatives and many friends in Ann Arbor; Have received not just financial but spiritual support from them; Have made a number of efforts in this benign situation, to get a new toe-hold on the lively world. Have failed. As an over-educated peasant I’ve read a good bit on Middle-Age Depression and known several cases other than my own. I know there are temporary chemical therapies and sometimes “temporary” is long enough. Experts agree it’s not a single isolable mental disease. Probably it’s a few simple humanities mixed up in a pot of random concomitant circumstances.In the months after I got back from my desperate flight to England I began to realize that my new personal incapabilities were still stubbornly hanging in. I did fight, but they hung in. Maybe my time in England, financed largely by my friends, was too benign a treatment; At any rate, it’s the only sustained period in my life that I now look back on in the silliest details as “fun,”unproductive fun. Not getting anything done. I did sit in my bedsitter very often in bemused despair, but also I had fun. Since then I’ve watched the elegant, energetic people of Ann Arbor, those I know and those I don’t know, going about their daily business on the streets and in the buildings, and I’ve felt a detached admiration for their energy and elegance. If I ever was a member of this species, perhaps it was a social accident that has now been canceled. To survive it all, I expect I must drift back down through the other half to the twentieth twentieth, which I already know pretty well, to the hundredth hundredth, which I only read and heard about. I might survive there quite a few years - - who knows? But you understand I have to do it by myself, with no benign umbrella. Human society fascinates me and awes me and fills me with grief and joy; I just can’t find my place to plug into it. So let me go, please; and please accept my thanks to those happy times that each of you has given me over the years; and please know that I would’ve preferred to give you more than I ever did or could - - I am in everyone’s debt. Elizabeth (Connie) Converse --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I have considered the lilies. They never toil, they only bloom, They never feel chilly, Or tired or silly And they don't need much room. I have considered the lilies. I have considered how they grow. Tell me, tell me how to be a lily, If you know. O-o-o-oh, lilies, Toil not neither do they spin. I'm gonna take my working papers, And turn them in. I'm handing over my pencil and pen, I won't be needing my broom again, I bloom by day, I bloom by night, And blooming will be my delight. Bright tiger lily, still water lily See how they all dilly-dally! Look at the day lily, lemon lily, calla lily, And the lovely little lilies of the valley. O-o-o-oh, lilies, Toil not neither do they spin. I'm gonna take my working papers, And turn them in. To be more splendid than Solomon, I'll walk around wearing The morning sun: The sun by day, the moon by night, And blooming will be my delight. It would be fun but I'm afraid That I would freeze. King Solomon was not arrayed Like one of these! So-o-o-o, lilies, I can't afford to dilly-dally. I've got to work for my cotton, Work for my denim, Linen and damask and challis! Not like the day lily, Lemon lily, calla-lily, And the lovely little lilies of the valley. I have considered the lilies. I have considered how they grow, Tell me, tell me how to be a lily, If you know. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~