"Life is so daily," said a character in one of my plays, "why can't I get used to it?" It's not the slings and arrows, the unlooked-for but always present onslaughts of living, it's the inexorable routine. It keeps surprising me, even after all these years. Not surprise, of course. Remember Webster's correction of Mrs. Webster when she caught him kissing the maid. Mrs. Webster said, "Mr. Webster, I am surprised." "No, my dear," said Mr. Webster, I am surprised. You are astonished." Yes, well, I am astonished every time I discover that my plants need watering, and in these dry winter days it's every day, like daily. And I don't welcome the daily chore of swallowing a one-a-day or a D-drop vitamin or calcium or whatever. I mean, daily! It's too much. Daily routine is so tedious but also necessary. We make enough decisions every day. I guess it's nice that some decisions are taken away from us by regular routine and we perform an action without thinking about it. It still takes getting used to. Am I going to get used to writing a blog every day?

A dear friend let his dog go yesterday., with heart-wrenching pain. We would not wish that kind of soul-tearing on anyone and yet we set ourselves up for it time after time. . Loss is implicit in love:., and yet we deny it. time after time. Love, they say, is deathless and never dies. But love's object dies and then love goes searching, clawing, writhing, howling. twisted and stricken with pain. What is there to say in the face of such torment?I I feel for my friend as I remember my own pain, past now, not as acute, paved over with scar tissue, but still there. There is no comfort, no present comfort, no balm to ease the wound. Only time. Only time can do anything and then it doesn't assuage the pain, it just distances it. For a while. Oh, my friend, what can I say, what can I do? I' am so sorry for your loss. Hang in there, Hold on. Nothing but obscenities. In the Anglo-Saxon poem, Deor's Lament, a warrior who has suffered physical and mental pain and who has nothing left comforts himself with bleak reassurance: "That passed; so may this." I guess.