A friend messaged me – he does not use the phone any longer, we used to talk for hours – and he asked me I was watching the political conventions tonight, Donald Trump was speaking, it was, he said, “a very big deal.”

No, I said, I am not watching, I told him he would have to call me if he wanted to talk about my evening it was too big for a text message. Reluctantly, he did call me. I repeated that I am not watching the Republican Convention last night. I have been following some of it and trying to make sense out of all the rage and hurt and speculation, there was a frantic and furious quality to it that made me uncomfortable, and I couldn’t really find a reason to watch more of it.

To me, it is like watching a crash or accident, I remembered when the bear was hit by the truck and hobbled in great pain to our fence, my stomach sank and that’s what I feel when I pay too much attention to these people.

What are you doing?, he asked, he seemed disappointed in me, as if I was immature, or somehow irresponsible. It’s our duty to pay attention, he said.

I told him what I was doing instead, i said. And then, I thought I should share it with you. Of course I should. I think he was quite bored, I hope you are not.

First, I said, I was making dinner for Maria.

She is recovering from a flu or virus. I made her an ingenuous dinner, which she ate and liked, I think it revived her.  I made her a chicken sausage from Yushak’s grocery in Shushan, I also went to Salem to buy a chocolate chip croissant. I cooked the sausage on my new grill, my first ever, I went to the hardware store and bought a big fat propane tank, it ought to last a long time, said Bryan at the hardware store, “if you’re telling me the truth about how little you grill.” I did.

I’ve got the sausage cooking down. I turn on the gas lever, push the red button, wait for the flame to catch. I cook the sausage for eight minutes at medium high, close the cover, sit down and take in the dusk, then get up, turn it and cook it for another eight minutes. The corn is already boiling in the big pot. Summer is a wonderful time to eat well up here.

The sausage is well cooked, tasty and moist. I take the sausages off the grill and bring them into the kitchen, I feel like a very American man for once. Grilling makes me feel confident, as if I really belong, for once I am doing something all the other men do.

I put the croissant – fresh-baked-  on the plate.  This menu is not in any recipe book I know of. She said she couldn’t eat much, but she ate the sausage and croissant, an unorthodox mix, but it seemed to revive her, she is getting more animated by the minute, she is coming back from her haze.

Then I went outside with Fate and performed our beloved summer ritual together: we watered the gardens, which now encircle the farmhouse thanks to Maria. I am proud of my watering, our gardens are beautiful and thriving, thanks to Maria’s care and my diligent watering.

Fate usually sits by the pasture gate to stare at the sheep, and every few minutes comes over to me, sticks her head between my legs to see what I am doing. We talk and cuddle and then she goes back to the gate, or wanders around looking for something revolting to eat.

I truly believe this dog is monitoring the gardens with me.

Red is not interested in watering, by late evening he is tired from his work and holes up in my study, waiting for me to come in and write on my blog. I leave him in peace.

I love to see the water pool, then sink slowly into the ground, I love to check the color and sheen of the flowers and the strength of their stems. Our dahlia’s are popping up, there are fat figs on our fig bush, the Three Sisters Garden is roaring upwards. I fill the birdbath.

This takes me about a half an hour then I come back in the house and do the dishes. I check my e-mail and messages, I am neck-deep in book negotiations and proposal writing and the people I deal with in New York think you are dead if you don’t answer e-mail in seconds at any time night or day.

I know, I used to be one of them.

I turn off the outside faucet, I visit Chloe and the donkeys, brought them bits of corn cob from dinner (I had corn and sausage), stand with them for a while listen to their peaceful crunching.

I go inside, II take off my shoes, sit down and pick up a new expanded version of Robert Frank’s The Americans. He is my favorite photographer (along with George Forss). This new edition cost a lot, more than $50, it came this week, it weighs about 15 pounds.  New photos and new text for this classic.

Robert Frank is to me what the Gee’s Bend Quilters are to Maria, a continuing source of inspiration. He captured the pain, strength, beauty, conflict and work of America, I always melt when I think I’ve taken a Robert Frank photo. His photos are so real. Treasure (above) is a Robert Frank subject, worth her weight in gold.

Frank  gave up photography for film-making after the wildly successful “Americans,” but I love looking at his work, it gives me ideas and gets me excited. It makes me better.

My new friend Treasure Wilkinson (shown above with Fanny) seems to me to have stepped out of The Americans, I could photograph her all day. Her face is full of life and feeling.

Maria has gone to bed now, it is quiet downstairs and in my study, the sound only of Red sighting and my new Vornado fan humming. I finish up  the call from my friend, and I sense he was disappointed with my night, he thought it boring, he wanted to rail and wonder about Donald Trump and what is happening to our country.  I am not much into railing about political people. I never get the point of it, and it seems futile.  I rarely see anyone in America change their mind about anything.

All I can do is try to  be a good me.

Maria comes down from upstairs to tell me, sweet soul that she is, that she has read my new book proposal and loves it. That feels good to me. She is a big part of this new book.

I finish the evening with a quiet reading from the Kabbalah, and am, as often happens, uplifted. There is nothing about this version of a God that frightens or disturbs me. He is not angry, threatening or vengeful. He loves women, love, peace and the earth. He worries about the poor.

I was thinking this after reading.

Whatever is implanted firmly in my mind becomes the essential thing, this is why  I am not watching television tonight. If I think of a good thing or something I love or a small act of mercy or kindness, if I wish for my intension to be authentic, then I imagine that I am light.

All around me – in every corner and on every side – is light. Turn to my right, and there is shining light. to my left, a radiant light. Between them, and up above, the presence of light and color. All all of it a crown of light, a swirling circle of light – it is the crowning aspirations of thought, illumining the paths of the imagination, spreading the radiance of vision. This light is affirming, unfathomable, endless, without boundary.

It is my idea of holy, this light.

That is what I am watching and seeing tonight. I am at peace, and  hopeful. And also grateful.   I needed to write this evening down.

I will take my Robert Frank book upstairs and hug my wife, and open it in the middle of the night, when I wake up. Tomorrow morning, I will check in on the news when I wake up before dawn, or perhaps I will take a walk in the woods instead let it find me, it usually does. Things I really need to know always find me.

I think of it as a beautiful evening, full of love and light and meaning. I wish the same for you.