W I N T E R

All through the holiday I corrected things in my apartment. My colleagues were away in Ioannina, or the Amalfi Coast; some went to Ireland or Denmark. Of course you can see everything that everyone is doing all the time, standing by a lake, by the Titanic museum. I , charting a different course, traced the outlines of the apartment and cleaned the floors and then cleaned them again, as apartments are more like vast libraries of dust. I went for walks, but it is cold outside. Not so cold that you can't walk, but your face starts to ache. The trees have an abject quality, and I have started like one of the children in my class to not enjoy taking the U Bahn, rushing around the subterranean chambers of Berlin. I think maybe it is  the weird flashes of lights and jolts; mostly taking this desire for light as something of a permanent condition, the weather being the grimmest of harbours during winter.  

When walking outside, on days where the skies have cleared and are blue, you can be struck by the deepness of the blue when the clouds have disappeared. During this time, I read a lot about the Iliad, about representations of heroism and friendship. I went to a bookclub and we talked about the Iliad, and the people were so interesting. Strangers, no connection other than this epic poem. I booked two flights to Paris and one to Sicily with no return. I went through Madeleine and my collection of papers and saved the most important pieces but tried mostly to reduce. We will be when the summer comes, without a home and without anything needing correction.