I just did my state taxes. It wasn't so bad, but state taxes are never good news. I think this is because state taxes are not as politicized as federal taxes, so there aren't as many breaks. I always end up paying something, whereas with federal taxes I'm occasionally happily surprised. I learned this time that NY State is now collecting unpaid sales and use taxes on the income tax form. You're expected to pay taxes on all purchases made over the Internet for which sales tax was not collected. Yikes! I had a moment of panic until I realized that I did NOT buy this laptop over the Internet, but at good ol' Best Buy—tax already paid. But if you've paid for such things as home repairs and did not pay taxes, you owe them. Garage sale items. . . taxable. Furniture and art work bought from, oh, say, aging composers, for example, is taxable on this form.

The last few weeks have been filled with excitement for me, excitement stemming from my life intersecting in a very incidental way with a great American composer, David Diamond. I recently bought many items of furniture and art from his household, as a well as some personal items of his, old suits, shirts, photographs, etc. It has captured my mind and made me happy. I've grown very fond of this old man whom I've never met. I'm not exactly sure why, though of course it's related to a great extent to my admiration of composers. If he were any other kind of artist, I'd probably be unmoved.

Diamond is a great man, I believe. I love his music, or at least what I know, and for me this goes a long way. I've already written about his importance to the American symphonic tradition. But it's more than that. Diamond was among that generation of American artists who gathering in Paris during the post-World War I era, studying and learning their art amidst the greatest talent, and within the most fertile environment, the century produced. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and mingled with the great composers in Europe throughout his early years, ultimately returning to the U.S. to produce authentically American music. He lived a rich life. He also lived his life boldly as a gay man when it was not easy to be gay, and when others were not so courageous. He was an intimate/lover of Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein lived a closeted life for much of his life. Diamond didn't. I certainly don't mean to cast judgments on Bernstein, but I can't help but admire Diamond. I wonder if his career suffered in any ways. Diamond lived a grand life amidst the greatest artists of our times, contributing great works to the cultural heritage of the 20th century. Near the end of his life he found himself huddled before an open oven to warm himself in a large old house in his birthplace in Rochester, NY. He's now an old man, and as I go through his things, his old clothes, the artifacts of his life, I love his oldness, his history, his life.

I've never believed that merely because one is old, one deserves an especially honored place. Respect and honored position must be earned. But if one has lived an honorable life, then old age, for me, becomes somehow imbued with overtones of the hallowed.

In one of his bedrooms I found stacks of laundered shirts, pressed and wrapped in plastic, ready for more wear that will never come. Narrow black leather shoes sat at the bottom of his closet, dusty and disorganized from their last use. I opened one of the shirts this morning to wear it. It smelled of vinegar, perhaps the decaying effect of old starch. I'll wash it, press it haphazardly, and wear it occasionally as one of my own. Yesterday I tried on several of his suits. They’re fine suits, but they're someone else’s. I felt the twinge of desecration as I put my arms into each jacket, as if I'd just broken into the national gallery, absconded with museum pieces and paraded about in mock imitation, wearing the nation's crown jewels and pretending to be the monarch in a land which no longer honored its royalty. The smell of old closeted wool, the feel of vagabond clothes, the fashions of past generations, the relics of ancestors and honored elders. . . I could walk through Diamond's house and his belongings forever, imagining his life events, distant telephone calls, quiet evenings alone spent leafing through books. Mornings and evenings grooming himself in front of the mirror. Where did he get that pin on the lapel of his suit? Did he buy the suits in Italy? Did he have a large circle of friends? On the inside of the door to his attic, where he seemed to have spent much quiet time, were the quaintest phrases of encouragement, cut from pages long ago faded to an antique orange and taped as a reminder to himself, perhaps before he retired to his bedroom to sleep—things such as "Someday you will be rich" or "You will always have a group of caring friends." He was a man of great talent and accomplishment, but I think he did not evolve into a hardened, crusty old man. He had insecurities and vulnerabilities throughout his life—another mark of a life well lived, and another reason to honor him. I can't quench my thirst for more details about him.

When I was a young boy, I lived on my grandfather's farm. He had obtained the farm from his parents, so it had been in the family from at least the turn of the century. There was an old farm house down a dusty old dirt lane, at the bottom of the hill, the house where my mother grew up. Many yards to the left of the house was a spring house where those living in the house would come to gather water. And there were other miscellaneous structures around the house, chicken coups, little wooden sheds, etc. The structures were all falling down or leaning precariously, weathered to a fossilized black color, the wooden slabs dried and brittle beyond decay. There was old, abandoned farm equipment scattered about, equipment clearly used before there were gasoline engines—old till blades and horse harnesses. To me it was like walking into a museum, into a different time. I was fascinated by it all, in awe because it seemed to be old and from a more primitive age, but also because it belonged to my ancestors. My grandfather, of course, took no notice of it all—he'd surely used some of it or seen it used when he was a child helping his father on the farm. It was a part of his life.

If you followed the same dirt road past the farmhouse, it crossed the edge of a field and circled around along a line of trees which separated two cornfields. On the right just past the bend was an old abandoned house, what was always referred to as the Jones house. I don't know who the Jones’ were. I'm sure my grandfather knows. I think they may have been relatives in some way, but not immediate family. Perhaps not. It was a two-story structure, but part of the roof had fallen in, windows were mostly broken or gone entirely. Small trees and bushes had grown up around it, and weeds were growing inside the first floor. It was being absorbed into the countryside, but if you wandered inside, there was an eerie juxtaposition of nature and civilization. You could still discern the layout of the house, and if you went upstairs the rooms were largely intact. There was old wallpaper on the walls and the floors were secure. It felt like a house. You could sense that it had been occupied, yet there was vegetation growing up from beneath. Although there was always a creepy, haunted house feeling to it, like it was straight out of the Blair Witch Project, I was always strangely drawn to it. I would occasionally wander through it with my cousin or uncle, although we were warned that it was not safe. I can remember wanting to stay and look through it, to absorb the feeling that it had been lived in by people who were long ago gone. There's a mystery to how lives inhabit times and spaces, but eventually are lost and absorbed by time and the creep of other living things. Who were these people, and what happened to them? Were these people a part of me in some way? Why was this house abandoned? What was their life there like? Well, I felt the same sensation going through Diamond's things, an eerie communion with the past. He's from a different age, and his life spanned times and places I'll never know. The artifacts he leaves behind are sadly already being absorbed by scavengers like me, and his life will be abbreviated by shortening memory until those who knew him are themselves gone. But of course his music survives for a while, which is more than most of us can say.