After a long time, I am writing from the bed, under the warm and heavy quilt. I am too tired today to sit in the chair in the ominously cold room. While earlier today, I was still surrounded by potential, I have returned to the slowness of the city I call home. I have returned to the cold, the languid, and the comfortable once again. And this to and fro, I assume, will continue to happen for a good part of this year. I imagine I must prepare for it as one gets ready for the sudden onset of fortune and misfortune, only in the knowledge that they will happen at some point. Today, however, I am out of my wits to come up with more than a handful of sentences or a clever metaphor. I reckon the day has had me go from one corner of the country to another. I believe that is explanation enough.
And now, I lie here, waiting to fall asleep as the chilly air from outside seeps into this room from slits and holes where the glass doors close, slipping like lies from lips that appear closed. There is never a way to know it, of course, but all closed things have a tendency to let something in. If the last week has taught me anything, it is that for all my checks and balances, for all my rules, for all my nature to keep everyone at arm’s length, I, too, have let people in. What an impossible thing it is when you think about it—to belong to others—and we do it day after day, and then, one day, we look around, and all we see are people who call us one of them. To know that all over this world, there are people who sometimes think of me and who I think of now and then, too. It fills me with joy on this otherwise solitary evening. To think I was convinced once that I will be alone, that I will fend for myself for all of time!
Today, I can rest and be at ease. There are people in my life, and soon, there will be more. There is nothing more cosy than this; there could not be. I do not have to brave it alone.
What else is there? What else matters?
Nothing.