If At First You Don't Succeed...

PROGRESS REPORT

New Words: 1550 on Chapter 3 ("Spirit, Faith, and Reason") of Arizona. The primary missionary among the Hopi pueblos having been murdered, the Franciscans decide to try again--including with the great-grandson of my POV character from the last chapter.

Total Words: 97900.

Reason For Stopping: Planned to head down early to my boss' farewell reception.

Book Year: 1634.

Today's Why I Love Living In The Internet Age: Early 17th century missionary chronicles translated into English. How hard would those have been to find in 1987, when I first came up with the idea for Arizona?

Mammalian Assistance: Despite what I said about him yesterday, Vegas wanted in today to guard his box pile. Maybe from Nate.

Exercise: Walked Tucker, walked down to campus. Oh, and I also walked Tucker a little after midnight.

Stimulants: None.

Today's Opening Passage(s): Fray Miguel de Alvarez, all his youthful fire channeled into missionary zeal, had not intended to go home one last time before heading north to Tusayan to restore his family’s honor.

His father would be distant; his mother wailing as if he was already dead, and his sisters not much better; his brothers, who never understood why he wanted to become a child of the Church, would simply mock him with half-jokes about being careful of what he ate while he lived with the Indians. But Fray Bernardo insisted, and even in this thing the younger friar must obey.

Darling Du Jour: “You had a satisfactory visit with the lady, Dona Constancia?” Fray Bernardo’s gaze made Miguel’s neck burn.

“I was pleased to hear that she is to be married.”

“Indeed?” He turned away with a faint smile Miguel recognized; wheels turned in the elder man’s mind. “I wondered if she might confess that to you.”

“You knew she meant to visit me?”

“I was the one who sent her to you.”

“You!” Now the young friar’s face burned with frustration bordering on betrayal. “Why would you do such a thing?”

Fray Bernardo let out a long sigh and halted in place along the edge of the road, clasping his hands as he faced Miguel. “A twenty-two year old man cannot understand how long the years can be, so accept my reasoning and counsel, Fray Miguel.” The elder friar himself was just past fifty, face browned and grooved by the sun and care. Miguel knew his joints ached from decades of labor by the occasional grunt, though Fray Bernardo always blessed his aches.

“Even if we survive, even if you live to be ninety,” the elder man continued, “God may will it that you never return to Mexico, but live among the Indians forever. Never to see your family again—or those you might have loved, given a different path. For such a commitment, I needed to be certain—and more important, that you are absolutely certain—that this is the path you must take.”

Miguel felt offended. “I would not have chosen a different path. This is what God has willed for me.”

Fray Bernardo nodded and resumed walking. “So He has.”

Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Farmer; Bragg.

Today's Out Of Context Quote

Laurie to me, last night: "What demon-possessed, half-inbred sea urchin thought of that?"