On certain gray San Francisco days, it is easy to believe that summer has been damaged, hope is absent…and there is nothing to do but wait. Godot is just around the corner. Does he have lunch? There is always that.

Finishing a book draft is like stumbling into a clearing in the forest. An empty space, quite attractive, but baffling. What to do? Well, there are the issues. A slate of political outrages awaits, doesn’t it? And several are always bubbling in the back of my mind. Whither Amtrak? The American health care debate. Internet for all. Good articles.

But, no. That’s the thing about clearings. They are spacious. They provide room for new things to grow. And old things to fester. And whether it’s growing or festering, it’s changing. Which must mean something.

I do have a pervasive anxiety these days. At night I sometimes run through a checklist of anxiety-inducing themes. Fear of death? Fear of abandonment. Or some combination of the two, dying and dying alone? Moving on…a fascist takeover of America. The latter always possible, one must admit. An entirely bona fide reason for staying awake nights. But not really. It’s an even better call to action.

Fear of failure. Ah, that’s perennially a good one. Thing is, after 70 years of failures and successes, I’m slightly beyond such worries. Or should be.

The future. The coming earthquake. Whether we are really going to celebrate our wedding anniversary today, Jane and I. Even better, what we are planning. An utterly urban outing. Leap aboard the #35 Muni bus, lurch up and over a San Francisco mountain or two. Then have dinner in a neighborhood restaurant.

Will I get robbed? That is to say, not by the restaurant but by passersby? It says something about my anxiety level that I’m not staying home. Don’t miss dinner, I always say.