1) Up at 4:15 - I just couldn’t sleep. Chicory coffee and devotional in the parlor, including but not limited to Luke 5, parts of Whitman’s Calamus Poems, Baltasar Gracian, and the work routine of Shostakovich. I love being up in wintertime pre-dawn dark . . . but I feel a nap coming on this afternoon.
2) Yesterday afternoon I was Christmas shopping in a bookstore where I saw a satire of our current political situation, The Captain and the Glory. And it just hit me like a rock that I have no laughter for the tragedy taking place in our country right now. Just none. And this morning, briefly scanning the news, I had no stomach for it. What’s happening here is a tragedy.
3) Big list of stuff to do after last week’s “mad, glittering week” of activities and engagements. This week will be much more domestic and pedestrian, and that’s OK.