My wanting to write books annihilates the original root impulse that would have me bravely and blunderingly working on them.

I may never be happy, but tonight I am content. Nothing more than an empty house, the warm hazy weariness from a day spent setting strawberry runners in the sun, a glass of cool sweet milk, and a shallow dish of blueberries bathed in cream. When one is so tired at the end of a day one must sleep, and at the next dawn there are more strawberry runners to set, and so one goes on living, near the earth. At times like this I'd call myself a fool to ask for more.

I have been holding a dialogue with myself and girding myself to stand fast without running.

It's a hell of a responsibility to be yourself. It's much easier to be somebody else or nobody at all.

I need not to be more with others, but to be more & more deeply, richly alone. Recreating worlds.

I felt very still and empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo.

God, how I ricochet between certainties and doubts.