Daylight has come just as it always does. Today it’s filtered through murky grey skies. An omen for the year to come? Trepidation and hope vie for dominance. Today, the beginning of something new springs hope that all will be well. Today, the dark skies create uneasiness and hope retreats. Today, in a changed world, dare we speculate on how it might be changed for the better? And so, it continues, up and down, even as we try to will away the memory of the roller coaster ride that was 2024 and conjure a new, more benign ride this year.

The hardest part of moving is purging. The hardest part of purging are the books. Deciding which to keep and which to discard is a kind of Sophie’s choice; which of my children should I let go? Do I relegate my favorite books to the donation pile or the garbage pile?

Even a glance at their spines makes the characters jump out and rouse my love anew. How to choose? Once gone, will I forget Philip and Mildred, Úrsula Buendía, Lolita, Sabina, Jane, Genevieve and all? Will the poignant thoughts and emotions they evoked also disappear and leave me bereft?

In my new studio I look out my window and see a pristine layer of snow covering the yard below me. Three fir trees of diminishing sizes line the fence to the right: tall, medium, small. In the corner where the fences meet, stands the skeleton of a deciduous tree, about 40 feet high with branches reaching 20 feet wide. Possibly a Northern Catalpa or a maple variety (hopefully orange), it will introduce itself to me in the spring.

Fat fluffy snowflakes have morphed into salt shaker specks that keep refreshing the white blanket covering the yard. It’s so quiet.

The long lens view of this first week of January sees the beginning of a rise out of the cold dark months of winter, but the close up view is quite something else. Grey days, grey streets, grey snow, grey moods. This January sixth we have the added dimension of having to reflect on what occurred this day in 2020 when Americans lost their minds in a frenzy of jingoistic fervor. The MAGA movement’s stated goal of achieving greatness again, paradoxically diminished its greatness by smearing its own Capital in shit. Zoom out and the picture is no less dreary.

A tethered and taunted bull, made madder by the ineffective picas the picadors have launched, is about to be let loose in the country. He will stomp and trash everything in his way and then will try to move beyond his own pasture to attack his neighbours. Still worse, he has coalesced a herd of steer, bulls with no balls, to facilitate his marauding. Blind to nuances of colour he sees only red. No reasoning or rational voice will stop the onslaught of the destruction and chaos he will effect. Where is the brave matador who will pierce his heart?

I want to embody the terror and desperation of Angelinos fleeing their homes, flames lapping at their feet, thinking that somehow that will make things better. But I can’t, and it wouldn’t. I watch as if it were my duty to bear witness to the devastation, feeling guilty for my own good fortune – my loved ones are safe, my home is secure. Then as I carry on with my daily life, I forget what’s happening. I enjoy a bath, I sit by the fireplace, cozy and content reading a book when unexpectedly it creeps in between the paragraphs.

Fire!

I had a dream, which did not seem a dream, more like a vague reminiscence. Beyond the shadows of the darkened room stood the man of my dream. I knew him. He had charmed me once, long ago. Half awake, with perishing memories, I strain to see his face, to find a clue in his expression to the enigma of past happiness. But the visage is elusive and the figure is foggy. He cannot give shape to my reminiscence nor can he re-ignite that spark of love yearning to fulfill itself. The enigmatic truth perhaps, is in the yearning itself.