It’s 9 PM and I began knocking things off shelves. Inadvertently. I don’t mean to do it, but it keeps happening. An elbow hitting a book, the wheelchair bumping into the bedside table and hurling allergy pills on the carpet. As it happens, I get increasingly angry. And small red warning lights are going off in the psyche. I have had it. Another day is coming to an end and maybe my life as well.

The latter being a safe bet, lives having a universal way of coming to an end. But mortality seems particularly immediate these days. Yes, it’s the virus. But it’s also the collective American death wish around the virus. What else can we call it?

And then there are the protests. They are actually our greatest hope, but they also are leading to their own sequel, the Empire Clumsily Strikes Back. I feel vulnerable on both fronts. Nevermind. And in the final analysis, it has been my fate to live in interesting times, to quote the Chinese.

My world has shrunk, and I have let it. In these interesting times, I have gotten some good writing done. I miss seeing people. I miss wandering down the hill to have a cappuccino. I hope I won’t miss the train. Recently, much of my writing energy has gone to composing a piece about Amtrak’s long-distance trains. This has been a good exercise. Good for my spirit.

There is the possibility in the near future of an actual trip. The diocese of California, Jane’s milieu, has a retreat center in the wine country that has closed to groups. However, it has cleverly opened to individual guests. Like Jane and me. It’s a magnificent setting, California oak and grassland on one side, famous vineyards on the other. The place is very much part of the Episcopal tradition, liberal, even progressive in this part of California. They compost. They cook healthy food, and as for the latter, they seem to have found a way of serving mealss out of doors, under some sort of awning, with tables safely distanced. So what the hell. A retreat at the retreat center which, I am happy to say, is not in retreat itself.

But I may be. These days I have remarkably little patience for anything. I’m on a committee looking into energy options for a San Francisco synagogue. Everyone in the group is great. I just have tremendous trouble with the group process. 

At times I even wonder if I care about the world. After all I will not be around much longer to enjoy it…I tell myself. But I also tell myself is that these low moments in our collective lives will pass. There is something awaiting us. Meanwhile, part of what I signed up for without signing up has to do with being an elder. Like it or not, I’m supposed to pass something on to the next generation.

It’s a job. I am trying to turn up for it on a daily basis.