I started it last night and finished it tonight - a beautiful little book called "Daybreak" by Joan Baez. I had admired her pacifism & anti-war stand before - and her music - but this has made her one of those special human beings I truly esteem. She doesn’t touch drugs, absolutely nothing beyond a little wine and an occasional sleeping pill. She trips on life and doesn’t want any interference. Something else she said really struck me. She said her father wrote her once that she comes to conclusions intuitively that take him years of thought to arrive at. I think that’s an important distinction between people; those who can derive and accept ideas on pure intuition, and those who search vainly all their lives for concrete confirmation of (often the same) ideas. For the first type of person, school is just "babysitting" (her word), but for the second it is food for his insatiable hunger. Steinbeck refers to this same distinction in talking about Cal and Alan (?), the sons of Adam T__. He goes further and says Cal was too intelligent to devote himself single-mindedly to school, but that his brother had to work harder to learn, and thus became devoted to the learning process. Being a confirmed studier, I’m not sure I accept that!
I went to El Maizal and did some rabbit work. Tomorrow Antonio and I are going to try an experiment with tattooing - see if we can do it with a pin and shoe polish! I read a U.S. rabbit book, & it gave advice completely different than what the CENTA pamphlet did. Now I don’t know which to follow!
I helped Don Adán beat some sorghum heads to remove the grain. I promised him my worthless watch ‘cause he has a friend that fixes them.
I asked Nico, the truck driver, if he’d seen my {bed} sheet. He said no, he’d only seen a pink one, and had put all my stuff in the corner. I had seen the sheet under his bedspread since coming back from Costa Rica, but couldn’t very well say that because it would have been like a direct accusation, & I can’t be sure. I told Luis about it and gathered from the expression on his face he was as suspicious of Nico as I. I should be angry, but just feel disgusted to have re-demonstrated how we humans can go blithely along ripping each other off without outward sign of guilt feelings - what a downer.
<I’m really getting anxious for a letter from Sofia.> All kinds of groundless doubts & misgivings run through my head. Looking at her picture don’t help, that innocent expression could draw compassion from a rock, but it doesn’t do her justice (as no picture ever really captures a personality, only a mood - if that). <Doggone it Sofia, if you loved me you’d write!>
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