28.11.59
Voices:
Do you love me?
Yes. I love you.
Shall I come? come tomorrow?
No. I am afraid.
Do you love me?
Yes. I do.
Shall I come?
I don’t know.
Do you love me? – yes. I love.
May I come tomorrow – ?
Yes. Do. Please, do.
10.12.59.
Will you come then,
Then all will be over
And the grave
They will carry me?…
Will you come then?…

26.3.60
I want to see you once more…
I want to see you once more…
I want to see you once more…
I want to see you once more…

28.6.60
I love you
I love you
I love love love love lov lo lo lo…

7. 3. 61.
American actor Rod Steiger’s poetry composed in spare moments:
Don’t dig me with your
downbeat conversations.
Don’t dig me –
Ding –
Dong –
–––––––-
And gong –
–––––––-
Don’t dig me with
your downbeat
conversations.
That is nice. Much better than if it were some long doggerel about all that – unwelcome conversations, the short break – “gong!” The short break in general – “and gong!”  Don’t bore me with your stupid talk.
Fine!

24.10.61

[Photo in Biddy’s kitchen. L to R: Daughter Sally, Inese, son David, Biddy, Laimons]

Conversations with Biddy. I am making mulberry jelly. The cream didn’t work out, I made the icing – it turned out good. The kids really liked it. I play Bach Inventions. You can spend a lifetime with those without noticing it.

Sweet and sour pork.
4. serv. Chinese

1 lb. pork (loin) (lean and fat)
1 egg
Solt
Cornflour
Lard or oil

Sweet sour souce

2 slices pinapple (or 4 oz. Chinese mix. Pickles)
2 tabl. Sp. Winegar
1 ½ ‘’ sugar
1 desert spoon cornflour
1 ½ teasp. Soya souce
1 teasp. Brandy
2 oz. Finely chopped spring onions
Pinch ground green ginger
Oil
½ pint woter
Salt

[October 1961.
Due to serious health problems, Erna leaves the farm and goes to Sydney.
Her husband, Janis, forbids her to return.
A friend of daughter Inese hires her as housekeeper.]

26.10.61
There is a danger
A danger in the cool, fresh air
In the windy, bright day
There is a rock
There is a rock in your way
You know, you know it
You don’t see it,
You know.
You don’t want to know it
You want to see it. You want to see – there is
No rock in your way.
It’s honey suckles, just
Honey suckles
You want to touch it
The rock in your way
To prove – its just honey suckles
To reach behind danger
For the promise of the breath of honey suckles.

15. 11. 62
Oh Rob! Wait for me! Relax today and wait!

24.11.62
You gave me back the world
As a birthday present
I got the world’s greatest city from you –
What can I do for you?
I got the trees with thousand winds
With million wheels all laughing
From you
What can I do for you?

You gave me back the world
The same old and
A quite new world
What can I do for you?
As a birthday present
I got the world’s
Greatest city, from you!
What can I do for you?

What can I do for you?
I got the trees with
Thousand winds
In Hyde Park, from you
And avenues and streets with
Million wheels
All laughing, from you.
What can I do for you?

13.08.63
You can’t be always (here)
Be sometimes
Be once again
As you were
There is no time to nule[?]
That can change it

29.08. 63
With the golden sand of the minutes
The time covers up those days
When we were near each other
In a million factual ways
First (of all?) – there was the time –
Your pure and delicate whistling
As somewhere high from the skyes
Behind, when I was banging
Very hungrily and lonely
The recreation hall’s piano keys:
And there in the minute long time//dreaming
There came the heaven to us
Of being so close together
As (you can never)//no one can be on the earth
Bewildered, shy and (though) eager
Afterwards wandered//met our eyes
– only to discover –
So heavenly near as in the music
We never can be on the earth
Through golden sand of the minutes
Bewildered, shy and eager
Still can see your eyes
The time pour over our days
As flood that over us rise
———

It seems to me
A Xmas tree
Is near you
When you look at me:
The warm trembling glow of the candle lights…
The unspoken wishes flow in a song
Sincere, childish and soft
And down to the mankind
Comes holy night
The mildest of all the nights
It seems to me
Once met I that
Under the breath
Of a Xmas tree
It might be hundred years ago
But still your hands
Are holding though
The unseeable presents for me.
———

Rock me, rock me in your hands
The clock ticks mildly and the sands
Are flowing in hot waves far in the desert
Only the waves of golden sands
Rock me, rock me in your hands
They are kind and cuddle me mildly
They protect me from the sands
Flowing in dead waves over our minutes.

14. Sept. 66  
You make me hungry of life of happiness, home and love.

10 sept. 1967
She, Mrs Sv. won’t go to Hell.
She will go as far as till the door. Then she will start to cry and will say – lets go for a drive. She will go for a drive and hold the hands. The man will smell ‘like Hell’. But she won’t cry any more, she even won’t vomit. She will sigh and hold the hands.

There is only one truth that there is no truth, and to take the lie we have to drink.

2 voice „Why Tomy has to go to Hell?”
1 v. „He betrayed”
2 v. „He betrayed whom?”
1 v.  „He betrayed himself. He betrayed God in himself. He betrayed love. He said there is no love. Of pure cowardice. The divine flame that God had lighted in him was just in full flame when Tom said so. Of fright to suffer. The flame kept burning very strong. He dropped it an said there is no ‘such thing’.
2 v.  „O! But why have you go to Hell? I think you liked Tomy?
1 v. „I have to go to Hell because I did not care for Tomy’s divine flame. I knew he brings the torch, I had to watch him and help. I did not. I was too happy just to bring high my flame.”
Etc, etc.

11 p.m.
I enjoy my heart
I love my heart
I love I hope I have my heart
It’s as alive as a bird that sings
It’s as alive as child that cries
It’s as alive as a tooth that aches
I love my heart
It’s so alive. 
——-

Tomorrow we will part!
I felt you crying in your bed
Crying alone in the dark
Bitterly, bitterly, desperately
Did you forgive me
My pride and all
Did you come back
To my love and all?
I heard you crying bitterly,
Parody [travesty]
I felt you creeping away from me
Creeping away from me furtively. 

20 {21}. Oct. 1967
„When you wet the bed
first it is warm
then it gets cold.” James Joyce.

I feel cold. So I have wetted the bed. But I cannot remember when and how?

31.10.67
I loved you
Because I thought
You loved me.
Now you will love me
Because
I loved you.

5.11.67
Sunday, 5 a.m.
Hundred years have passed
My heart is hard and stale
Could the softness of your kisses
Still wake her 
Or they would fail
In this deserted dryness?
O, she is awake she is
Awake as a bird.

7. Nov. 1967.
9 p.m.
I am drunk
And now I feel
You are drunk
And you’r with me.
When you are drunk
You are more alive
Than when you aren’t
Because you don’t worry
When you are drunk
About your phisical being
But enjoy your spirits existence.
[The next moment I took you] out of the other woman’s bed if you are there and if you’re not it makes no difference, cause you are with me.

19. 12. 67.
[I thought — ] „cherish him and love”

1. Nov. 1968.
I have to proove the greatness of me and you….
Thats what I said and thought… But.

May 15 to July 25, 1969
[Erna flew to Germany to visit me (Inese) in the small northern town of Damme, where I was teaching English at the local Gymnasium (High School). At the end of the school year, we (Mum, Inese, Laimons) set off to travel — in the VW van, camping, often informally, through Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain and France, to depart for Canada from Paris at the end of the summer.

There are no diary entries by Erna during this period because our luggage was stolen in Rome. It contained Erna’s diaries and notes from the last half of May to mid-July — that is, from the end of my time at the school in Damme, including a short trip to Holland and Belgium before we set for the rest of the trip that summer.

See my notes of our travels in Europe during that period in separate post.]

8 August  1969.
I was a pest this morning – I thought before – I will never, never again be a pest! And I was – But I did not thought so, did not mean – just all went wrong again. – And it’s so heavy to go on.

Sunday 9. Nov. 1969.
I have died 30 years ago. And many others have, and many others have… {But that is not a consolation].

Thurs. 25.12.1969
Merry Xmas to me!
We all are fools. But there are many kinds of them.

Wednesday. {14. 1. 70.}
I hate to think and to think without any results.

15. 1. 70.
Happiness is the state of mind, not
State of your life real conditions.

29. janv. 1970.
If it would help I would go to him and say: „Be my lover for one night or two. I have to destroy something in me…”

Villon – ‘Ballade of Dead Ladies’!
„Nay, never ask this week, fair lord,
Where they are gone, nor yet this year,
Save with thus much for an overword
But where are the snows of yester-year?”

Tuesday 17. Febr. 70
Hate the situation that let me down ––

Monday, Nov. 23. 1970.
Nearly 8 am. Justine to come. Sunny day. Very crisp. I am full of hate for the loneliness I have made for me in my life.
But then – ‘Waiting for Godot’ was Beckett’s discovery of life and – ‘if we could have 5 minutes of happiness’ it is Anouilh’s discovery –
How could I hope for more? I am one of them, the seeker, the unrestful only stupid too spirit. Bound by feet and arms – and still, on my way.
What to do in this day? Sacrebleu! I have started to speak in English and did not know it…

Tuesday 24. nov. 11 am
An old lady – rang the doorbell (maybe it woke Justine up) again with religious books
„I don’t need them, thank you” –
„Oh! What nationality are you?”
„–-.”
„What nationality are you?”
„Latvian.”
„So. Then you cannot read English. You cannot read.”
„Yes, I can! Thank you.”
And then she took off.

Thurs. 3 Dec. 1970. 9.30 or 10 am
[No letter from Dzid. Too long! One of mine from the ship returned… The last sentence is good and nice]:  „Now I am sitting in your room with your pictures round and thinking again as I thought, when I went through all this house cleaning business: how beautiful the life here has been, how full with nice things – under every little piece of paper thrown away, – a drawing, a sketch, a poem written, some sentences with beautiful thoughts… I had to open every little scrap of paper – to find something worthy on it – a little sign of a living spirit… We were rich, and we should stay so…”

25 dec. 1970.
Christmas Day!
Anyway – who cares! I walk, I drive, I do – I move forward in a shaky jalopy, instead of travelling by express, like — everyone else! Ha! Plenty of room! Plenty of fresh air! Plenty of free thinking! Plenty of imagination, instead of seeing [..] – resting – happy people. O.K.

My holy loneliness
With blues, and greens
And mountains.
O, world, my own
My lovely
World of dreams.
My dreams so true,
I sing with you
My song
My song of life!

Friday, 12 Feb. 1971. 8.30 am.
Anyway – it was nice to be free and selfconfident. …

23 Nov. 1971. 6 am
„The light died in the low clouds. Falling snow drank in the dusk. Shrouded in silence, the branches wrapped in their peace.
When the boundaries were erased, once again the wonder: that I exist.” Dag Hammarskjold.
I think Auden doesn’t translate very well here, or English doesn’t translate Swedish either. ‘When the boundaries were erased’ – stupid translation for the situation — gives a kind of ‘indoor’ feeling, but here is a moment — outside, in nature.
Anyway — Dag Hammarskjold no longer exists. Or still does? What once existed — exists forever. But then it turns out that he should have existed before too — if he exists after existing, then it should also have existed before existing.
How?
“Where is the fire that has burned out,
Where goes the wind that has died,” or something like that.
The shadows on the brick fence are so fresh inviting, full of happy possibilities, living poetry, full of some kind of riches.
“We carry the miracles within us that we seek outside ourselves.” (ibid.)
„Without being aware of it, our fingers are so guided, that a pattern is created when the thread gets caught in the web.” Dag Hammarskjold.

Easter, 2 Apr. 6 a.m. 1972
[And I thought]: Who is D? What he thinks he is doing and what is he doing?
I am 100% sure – he plays with the hand and ring. He showed me the hand without the ring – allured me in ‘the hope’, now he specially shows it with the ring – saying – no hope. Haha!

1 January 1972!
Home.
{cutting from horoscope}: Now that you are capable of making new arrangements to improve your life, make sure you do not permit some glamor-puss to curtail your efforts. An associate feels depressed. Do something to restore his ego.

——————

Monday, 29 May 1972. 4 p.m.

Gazpacho – Spanish vitamin sauce – entrée – or after a meal, as it is served in Spain

1 lb. Tomatoes
1 clove garlic, big
1 green pepper, big too
1 onion, very big or two {this line crossed out}
1 dessertspoon olive oil
1 dessertspoon of vinegar
2-3 slices of bread (without crust) soaked in water and squeezed.
Grind green pepper (seeded) and garlic (in mortar), onion, add bread, peeled tomatoes, pepper + salt – beat well into a paste slowly adding oil and vinegar – put through sieve if liked –
Then this sauce – serve ice cold over diced cucumber, or green pepper (chopped) or chopped hard boiled egg, tiny toasted bread cubes, chopped raw onion.

Revoltillos –

Dice 2-3 potatoes and carrots, chop in fairly large pieces of hardboiled egg, place a little of each on thinly cut braising steak – roll, fasten with sticks (or strings), toss in flour – fry in oil (or fat) with chopped onion, season well, add other desired vegies, pour stock over – stew.

Bean salad (Freija)

Mount. Maid – niblets
Donald Duck’s – butter beans
Master Food – red kidney beans
Mix in oil + lemon with {or?} vinegar + greens or sliced ​​onions.

Paella – Party rice

Handful rice per person (one for pot)
Per person
½ lb. Tomatoes (per person)
1 onion large
1-2 red peppers sweet
1 rasher bacon
Meat, fish, or shellfish – how much [..] liked
Saffron, salt, pepper
Oil, for frying
In a big pan
Fry the diced meat in oil with bacon and chopped onion – (for some minutes), put in chopped tomatoes and red pepper in thin strips.
Salt + pepper + pinch of saffron (?). Cook the meat in tomatoes until almost tender, then add cooked meat (if wanted) or fish and water or stock 1 ½ cups for 1 cup of rice, when it starts to boil (better add boiling stock and only so) put in the rice previously fried in oil for few minutes –
Now boil rapidly until liquid absorbed – do not mix, only shake the pan sometimes –
Put in oven to settle – serve at once.
In this case only uncooked meat can be used and only cooked meat – adding it later, to the rice.
Poultry and fish, and all kinds of leftovers including liver and ham – are usually put in their real ‘arroz a la Valcenciana’.
If only cooked meat is used – better then to cook the rice in stock – (more flavor).

Wednesday, 31 May. 9 am.

But – in a way, I am terribly happy to leave this bloody country, to leave the way of life people lead here. The country is allright, but something in the habits of the people is disgusting. Something – I even do not know how to tell it – some kind of narrow mindedness – of – herd thinking, some limitations, some onesidedness of customs.
And the migrants – they are cultivating something like that too, keeping themselves, thinking backward. ‘Everyone must come in long dresses.’

19.8.72

In my opinion – a very good poem from an Australian student
If I see you
Roses flow
Leaves chime
Crystals grow.

If I touch you
Tables turn
Towers lean
Witches burn.

If I leave you
Lenses shiver
Flags fall
All is over.

Nonsense. Sentimentality. Can’t keep everything.

—————

[Text by Erna in English at front of new notebook]
May be this date: 2. October. Capetown. [1972 on way to England to visit Dzidra]

I loved my father more than my mother, when I was a very little girl. Later, when I had only my mother left, I loved double. [See My life]

———-

9. October, Monday.
[Erna on ship “Orsova” bound for England to stay with Dzidra]

2 p.m. Lunch was good. A very good salad, it’s almost a pity that I took it so sparingly. But it was enough, enough of everything. Pinocchio also walked around keeping an eye on everything. And for some unknown reason, we can’t find a way to just exchange a glance. Both seem to avoid it — and do not want to do it. No glasses this morning. I like him, probably for the simple reason — that you can’t get by without ‘liking’ something… And I like our winewaiter — he is very handsome, nice to look at. – (Tis beautiful) and I like our tablewaiter – poor, not too bright and harassed by Krauskopf [a German passenger]: “This is cold. Take it back. I said — herring, not fish. Bring it back. You don’t know, fish or herring?”

Well, yes, but Pinocchio — I like differently. He is a strange phenomenon, ugly, elegant, always happens nearby, but unobtrusive, you can’t understand sometimes — how he happens to be nearby and what he expects, because — he doesn’t expect anything and he just happens to be nearby.

12. October.1972
My last chance! To be alone and to find, to choose something. Nothing doing!

25 Dec. 1972 Christmas Day.

Music. Gift giving. Visitors.

A little sun in the window. Dz. making Christmas lunch. Cl. and his sister, visiting from Australia, and Julie, her friends, are in the living room. I opened the book of poems given to Caroline (from Cl.). I will write down one poem here.

As the mist leaves no scar
On the dark green hill
So my body leaves no scar
On you, nor ever will.

When wind and hawk encounter
What remains to keep?
So you and I encounter
Then turn, then fall to sleep.

As many nights endure
Without a moon or star,
So will we endure
When one is gone far.               Leonard Cohen.

Other poems are also so lyrical.

Oh, green hills,
Dark, green hills...

———————-

17. March, Mond. 1974. 8.30 a.m.

[gift/greeting card „To: dearest mommy From: your loving kids – from Dzidra]

————–

17-20. maijs.

[Long weekend — drive to Kimberley, camping on [Long weekend — drive to Kimberley, camping on the way. Visit to Gordon’s sister Jeannette & their mother. Camping on way there & back, mum sleeping in van — Heldley mine, old wooden covered bridge, Fort Steele — animals along the way: deer, moose, coyote, black bear, squirrels, gophers & hundreds of elk. Photo: L to R: Gordon, mother, Erna, Jeannette]

————————-

23. March, 1975 Sunday.

Diet (Austra’s proofed) 2 weeks
Drink minimum 5 pints fluid a day. Tea, coffee, must – black, no milk, sugar. No eating between meals. No salt, pepper etc. on food.

Breakfast each day: ½ grapefruit 1-2 eggs. Coffee (or tea)

Lunch 

Monday: Fresh fruit, any fruit. Eat as much as you like
Tuesday: Cold chicken, tomato, ½ grapefruit
Wednesday: 2 eggs, tomato, coffee
Thursday: lunch as Monday
Friday: 2 poached eggs, spinach, coffee
Saturday: lunch as Friday
Sunday: as Monday

Dinner 

Monday: 2 eggs, green salad, ½ grapefruit, 1 piece dry toast
Tuesday: Steak, tomato, lettuce, celery, cucumber, olives, coffee
Wednesday: 2 lamb chops, celery, cucumber, tomato, coffee
Thursday: 2 eggs, cottage cheese, shredded cabbage, 1 piece dry toast
Friday: Fish, mixed green salad,  ½ grapefruit , 1 piece dry toast
Saturday: Steak, celery, cucumber, tomato, coffee
Sunday: Chicken, tomato, carrot, cooked cabbage, grapefruit, coffee

3. June, Tuesday. 1.20 pm. 1975

Am sitting in bed in Marrickville hospital [in Sydney]
4.30 p.m. Had all the things done – shaved (both legs), painted, to show where the veins are bad, urine taken, blood pressure, doctors consultation, gave my signature for blood transfusion if necessary, and gave away to office 18 dollars of money and my bracelet.
So, I am preparing, and have been prepared – for an operation.
I wish I could speak to Inny and Dzid. – but that cannot be done. Very warm here.

4th of June.

Morning slept well – with a sleeping pill. But heart – leaps and leaps… I am longing to be in fresh air, outside. But – it is O.K. Saw my doctor, he thinks will be done fine. He seems to be a very good and beloved doctor. Old Dr. Gibson has done it for me.

The most funny view here: a lady constantly says – ma, ma, ma, ma, or ba, ba, ba, ba, (with little intervals like a dog when its learning) Something is very wrong with her, mostly – mentally. There comes a ‘little boy’ a male nurse (with long, black hair in a horsetail, plus a beard and a moustache – very thin. He is really amiable.) Now he is feeding breakfast to that woman, gives her spoonfuls of porridge, and as soon as she has an empty mouth she says again and again mamama, bababa. They call her – Mabel!

I think it is a great idea to have those ‘hairy ones’ here to help the very sick women – to get at last the two different poles (the bad youth and the good oldies) – together!

In a couple of minutes time I may be called to the surgery room. My troubles do not seem to be big, comparing with other people illnesses, only my heart does not seem to be as good as it was a year ago. I hope it is mostly of my situation here in Australia this year – a visitor in a strange, unloved, disturbing (and good really good) home, and of the awful trouble with my editor.

I try to keep going, hope to be well and better and happy and strong.
When I had shower this morning, I was pleased with my strong, fit looking body. Except for some extra pounds – it is good, very good. Austra’s egg diet however (in Windsor) was not good for me. Better with bananas if I want to lose weight. I need milk. The pain in my shoulders and left arm especially, might be connected with my heart more than the cold.

Hope you are happy Tālis, Inese, Dzid, Clive Gordon etc etc etc. My younger, my older, my all!

—————-

7.12.75

Cheesecake

1 natural yogurt
1 cup milk powder
1 tabl.sp. flour
2-3 eggs
A little sugar
1 tabl.sp. lemon juice
Separate eggwhite. Mix all ingredients except eggwhite. Whip it – then mix in. Fill baked form of bases for cake.
Can mix in also sour cream, cream, raisins etc.

30. January, Sunday 1977

„Nothing is more different from love than the idea we have of it.” Proust.
„Still, the development and continuity of that Idea, depends on the person with which we supposed to be in love, and on ourselves.” Me.

6 July 1977 Wednesday.
Letter from Dzidra. Finally! Otherwise – O.K. only – with Clive [right] it’s awful. Stupid, unmanly man. Pleasure hunter all his life. Small and easy things, ways, achievements.

July 1978

“Content is a glimpse of something,
an encounter like a flash.
It’s very tiny — very tiny, content.”
        Willem de Cooning. (in an interview.)

6.12.1978

André Maurois ‘The Art of Writing’ (about Turgenev)
“Poetry is the art of remaking, of recreating the world of man, of imposing upon it a form, and above all a rhythm.“
A very similar definition to my poem — on the topic of poetry — which I sent to Dēliņš (Dec.) Good!!
“To reconstruct this mysterious unity, to establish a relationship between nature and the human emotions, to set the individual adventure within the vast rhythmic movement of clouds and sunlight, spring and winter, youth and age, that is what being a poet (at the same time a novelist) means.“

28.1.1979

Am reading Giovanni Guareschi!! ‘My Secret Diary’ – … „you must separate yourself from masses” – he says.

23. May.1979

Am reading B. Koppa – If You Meet the Buddja… Kill Him.

—————

Sunday. 17. Nov. 1980
Dzidra’s party

Yesterday was Dz. party. Its the morning, 8 o’clock, so the time is just – after it all, with the house full of empty and half empty glasses, and empty and half empty little ceramic dishes with nuts and raisins. Otherwise, except for a faint smell of beer and wine, the house is clean and beautiful, specially overcrowded, but pleasantly overcrowded with Dzidra’s pictures.
(Yesterday) the party started slowly, after 8 pm. (Previously I had asked Dzid, how many people she is expecting – „No idea” she said, „it might be 10 it might be 50”…)

As after 9 pm. all was very quiet still, and I had heard (from my upstairs room veranda) only couple of guests arriving, I decided to go downstairs to the failing party. By the way – I had spent (not willingly so long) all the day on the beach (Dy Why – ) and was burned all over and red and puffed up like a sausage. I put on my green (large) patterned caftan, and went quietly (precociously) down. Luckily I met Dzidra on the stairs – „Should I join you?”. She was doubtful. „Can you put on something dark?” she said. But I was not willing to think of that. I know that the pattern and the colour of the dress is awful, but in some way it is flattering to my appearance – it is the elegant Voges pattern that Inese made for me…

„No! Come as you are! You look good!” Dzid decided, and I went in. There was about 10-12 people sitting in a circle on the floor and couches. Some I knew and smiled at them, couple were introduced by Dzid. 1 young man (teacher from Dz. School) gave me his seat.
They were quietly talking + drinking by a quiet music. After a while I slipped out and back to my room. There were enough people for Dzid to name it a – party and to go on with it.
I went to bed, and almost fell asleep.

Then suddenly the music went loud, really grand and beautifully so. The sounds came suddenly up through all the building like flames. I felt the walls melting! It was – just wonderful, beautiful, gay, jolly gay and almost a little frightening, no just from the neighbours, but of all the possibility that the building would start to vibrate to such a ______ that it would bust and collapse.

The music was really soundful, rich, nice for the ear and the beat of the rhythms enchanting. I listened for a while, and thought – good that the melodies and rhythms are changing, otherwise the house sure would go down. I loved it all, I thought – I will go down once more and look at the dancers before the cops come… The dancing went in full speed, one could guess.

But I decided – better to sleep and stuffed my ears with cotton wool to be able to enjoy the music more a relaxing way. But – I changed my mind, jumped out of bed, hurried to put on my dress. Just then Dzid was at the door, all her hair dripping wet from dancing – „Can you stand it?” she asked.
„I can! I don’t know if the neighbours can. It’s jolly gay. I want to see it.” –
Down I went and forgot the cottonwool in my ears.

I was warmly met by Anny and others. I could not understand a sentence what Any said, I thought she is talking different slang. Later I was in big language and literature discussions. I played the main role – bloody fool!! Was kissed on the lips and hand at parting – came up to my bed and found the cotton wool in my ears and laughed loud in the night – bloody old idiot!
Yes – the cops came after about an hour, about 12.15 or so. But Dzid knew they will come, and let the people have a real time till the moment they arrive.

Some people from the street lingered around the open door – lured to join that hilarious gayety. A car stopped, moved a little forward then again backward to have a good look through the windows – the party lights, red and violet, the dancers in streams and cascades of music.

One young man all in white, with a bunch of blond curls on his nape, was dancing like an angel gone crazy, and so were the others, tall Dzid with her dark head and with the thing over her shoulders some very tall dark feller etc.
All seems to have been excellent, how much I can guess (I have not met Dzid yet). Dz. has recaptured her Canadian!

The food was poor but plenty – just carrots, celery, nuts and raisins plus some crackers and a piece of cheese (adding a uncut pineapple which was – old) the wine – and beer as usual. For coffée no time.
At 2 am all was over! I am going to meet Dz. I am all burning in my sunburn, but – I could sleep anyway….
And today is all cloudy – nobody had to shout with cannons – Dzidra’s party music did it!
The music sure could have been a little softer, even for all the dancers, but no I understand – madness adds something to it all, and if it is so just good humored, just joy – its fine.
However – it’s a thing that might be hard to balance. All the Hells Angels might also do their madness just for joys sake. But I really could not and would not compare that sparkling hour yesterday to some of those things.

—————–

Frid. 11. Dec. 1981.
[in Hope, B.C., Canada]
I have started a life here – with my notes (diaries) and imaginations needed for writing

Mond. 10 Jan 1983

The Great Books Club books for 1982 {83?}:
The River – O’Conner (or?)
Stress Without Distress – Selye or Selze
Letters From The Earth – M. Twain
Love in the Ruins – Percy

Fri. 14. jan. 1983.

Characteristiks of this time observed by Saul Bellow:
Pride
Anger
Excessive rationality
Homosexual inclinations
Inability to bear criticism
Hostile projections
Competitiveness
Mistrust of emotions
Delusion etc.

Monday, 16 May, 1983
Gord. also ‘impressed’, but otherwise – ‘no’. Inese can always go back to teach French. She can never be without work and security. “Don’t worry, come after 25 years and you will find her as well as always (there, here in the world).” Maybe.

26. April, 1985
Am reading Fowles, French Lieut. Woman

Fowl. book, Catullus translation of Sapho – (which is said to be ‘the best clinical description of love in European medicine’))
„Whenever I see you
Sound fails, my tongue falters,
Thin fire steals through my limbs,
An inner roar and darkness
Shrouds my ears and eyes.”

10.09.85
It was already late yesterday, I was still walking along the main road and I was looking at the trees, up above the rocks, cliffs. These trees are beginning to say something almost inexpressible to me. The life, the existence. The hardships, the beauty, the eternal, the heavy, beautiful rule and desire – to live.

Thursday 12 Sept. 1985
The life, the existence. The hardships, the beauty, the eternal, the heavy, beautiful rule and desire – to live. [Right: View from Erna’s window in Banff]

Monday 7. Oct. 1985

No mail! No check. Changed our travel. checks and opened accounts.

————————

22 March, 1988

[Faces]

Often I see faces where there are no faces. Walking in the street I can see faces on the asfalt, on the old pavement, in the leaves of the trees, on the tree trunks, in the clouds of course. To see faces in the clouds that is a little different thing. I would say – it is very common thing, very normal thing. [See Other Texts and Fragments section for full text,]

15. April 1988
About the blackbirds whistle says ITALO CALVINO:
„…Or maybe no one can understand anyone: each blackbird believes that he has put into his whistle a meaning fundamental for him, but only he understands it; the other gives him a reply that has no connection with what he said; It is a dialogue between the deaf, a conversation without head or tail.”

This is exactly what came to my mind when I saw and heard how the starlings in the garden walk on the grass every now and then (quite unmusically…) give a whistle — sometimes it seems — they might be talking, sometimes it seems – it is whistling every now and then without any connection and meaning — they walk, search and find something to eat, eat and give a squawk, or well – a whistle. “Conversation without head or tail.”

4 May, 1988
From Milan Kundera book ‘Farewell Party’.
„Life is to be accepted totally and completely.” (to the dregs…)

It suddenly occurs to me that this would be a good title for a book: ‘To the dregs.’

18. nov. 1988.

Salzburger dumplings.

4 eggwhites
3 eggyolks, essence of vanilla
1 ½ oz. flour
3 oz. sugar
¼ pint milk about + 1 oz butter.
Put milk + butter in ovenproof dish – heat in oven
Beat eggwhites
Stir together – eggyolks, sugar, vanilla, mix in flour, mix in ½ of the eggwhites
Fold in the rest of eggwhites
Make 3 dumplings, put in the milk pan
Bake – 6-8 min.
Eat hot, sprinkled with sugar.

19. Apr. 1989.
[In Montreal, Dr. Czitrom’s thanks for gift of Erna’s new book of poetry, Artava]
“Thanks for the book. Very very nice book.” Good, good!

27. Febr. 1990.
[New notebook for her diary:
Mum, Merry Xmas & Happy New Year – may it be full of Health, Creation, Fulfilment and Inner Peace. Much, much love.
Inese]

15. July 1991
[She attended a Mountain Writers’ conference in the Rockies just across the border, in B.C., where she met Peter Christensen]
Peter Christensen. I bought a book of his poems — “To Die Ascending”. Some poems are very short — I would sometimes like to grant licence to similar ones of my own. Noteworthy is that these short poems all have headings, which are then also the first line of the poem. For example:

On a horse
there is rhythm.
Everything we say
is careless wind.
*
Canada Jay
grey bird
for tallow
for grain.
Winter hot inside your breast.
*
Chinook
in waves
down the mountains
to lift the white skirts
of old mother prairie.
Brings visions of summer
on the wind
smell of forests.

15. sept.1991

Mary’s muffins
2 cup flour
2 tablsp. sugar
4 teasp. B. powder
¾-1 cup milk
1 egg (beaten)
2 tablsp. melted short.
2 cups blueberries
Bake 15-20 min.

[Photo: Erna visiting Gary, Mary in Vancouver]

This is a perfect recipe – I baked it with more than ¼ bran flour and sliced ​​apples + plums – but I didn’t put 2 cups because I was afraid – but you can and should put it. Also, baking powder cannot be felt at all when eating – so do everything as stated in the recipe. And use what you have.

7. March, Saturday 1992
I’m just finishing Gabriel García Márquez’s ‘The General in his Labyrinth’ — (a book that Inese has just bought):

“There is no greater victory than being alive”.

So celebrate this victory, you fool!…

25 March 1992
I slept badly – late last evening too strong a dinner – acidity and mustard and meat.
I went to the park. There is nothing ready for greening there – the tiny sprouts of grass that I saw 3 days ago – seem to have disappeared – it is probably too dry and it was also colder. Today the sun is warm.
Sitting on the bench there, I tried to imagine what it would be like if for a year I lived longer with Dzidra – and strangely – I felt myself non-existent, empty as air – real neither here nor there. But – I do still exist.

I am reading, re-reading, D. Thomas Letters, looking for some thought he expressed. And here is one of his thoughts that did not strike me when I read it for the first time:

…”A live body is a building around the soul, and the dead body is without it. Without the soul a body breaks, but broken pieces are beautiful and meaningful because the soul has made them so and has left its marks. … just as, on looking on an empty house, we should say, there stands strength, strength (or anything else) for it housed strength, strength being beautiful…”

Frid. 4. Sept. 1992

[Photo right: Greta camp days, Erna and Pix, ca. 1952]

Hal Summers (1911 – )

My old cat is dead
Who would butt me with his head.
He had the sleekest fur,
He had the blackest purr.
Always gentle with us
Was this black puss,
But when I found him today
Stiff and cold where he lay,
His look was a lion’s
Full of rage, defiance:
O! He would not pretend
That what came was a friend
But met it in pure hate.
Well died, my old cat!

11. Febr. 1993.

Reading American Voices – short stories. Up to now, the best are J. Updaike – ‘Separation’ and Dennis McFarland – ‘Nothing to Ask For’.
Also Amy Tan – ‘Rules of the Game’ O.K. Two other women authors I’ve forgotten and Carol Oates – somehow heavy and… yes and – what? Not compact, not strongly artistic. ‘Artistic’ in quotes.

1995

Kobo Abe. „The Woman in the Dunes”.
About man trapped in a sand hole where there is a little house with a woman.

To live there – you have to dig the sand every night and put it in buckets, then the men from the village come and ‘fish’ it out. There has been a string ladder when the man came – to have a ‘hotel’ for a night. But he is trapped, the stairs taken away, no escape. Struggling, desperateness awful – sand everywhere… Once he escapes but is caught and put back.

Awful simple sex with the woman – however they are too hostile to each other. If they do not shovel the sand away every day (night actually) all the village will disappear under the sand.

At last the man discovers water at the hole’s bottom – under a bucket he has placed there to catch crows (actually he is a teacher – insect gatherer, looking for new specimen beetles. He never there (for years) does anything – just suffers and works at the sand a bit.)
Yes – under in the bucket – he finds water, that by capillary momentum gather in the bucket – So that is his way for escaping, but it does not describe how. Only you read announcement of him – missing, escaped.
So he is somewhere in freedom. –
But the years there – the life??

Awful books writer is Japanese author Kobo Abe, the language pretty rude too and the reader – gets impatient to know the ending?

It was said (once) in a school or in literary critics that that is a bad style to write like that – that the reader gets impatient for the ending. But maybe it depends also of the reader. Still I do not get impatient usually with good books – I got in both of Kobo Abe books impatient to know the ending. I read also – too long without a rest.

---

4.10.1996
Erna’s 90th Birthday

[Earlier in the day]:

[Special lunch at Tsu T’ina First Nation Council Chambers]:

[Evening — with dinner guests, Stephanie and Nelson]:

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Note: In 2000 Erna suffered an attack of gall stones and was taken to hospital. From there she did not return home, she spent the next 2+ years in a seniors’ Care Home. That period is described in Letters, Final Saga, Dzidra & Inese 2000-01 and Dzidra & Inese 2002-03.