I'e been saying it for years now: happiness is the Sunday New York Times. And it's a good thing, too, because otherwise I might notice how alone I am. Not lonely, mind, but definitely alone. I'm very grateful to be here and healthy and to be able to think and read and write and I do NOT complain. But - you knew there is a but - I can't help but notice the silence when the buzz in my mind pauses. The awareness of my alone-ness (not loneliness and not solitude) comes from the increasing losses of friends and contemporaries. I've said before, and it's a familiar image, I feel like a duck in a shooting gallery. Right, left, above below, behind and in front of me, my cohorts are being picked off. (Hah! missed me.) But I miss them. Of course, my parents are gone, and my brother, my only sibling, four years ago now, and my husband died 40 years ago. So you think I'd be used to it. Not. This past spring my first cousin, who shared the same grandfather with me, died after a long, brave, sliding fall with Alzheimer's. He was my last contemporary relative. Now I really am the last one at the top of my totem pole. I read just recently corroboration of my belief that low person on the totem pole is more powerful and relevant than the top one. No matter how good the view may be from up there, it's remote and it's the jumping off-point. There's a piece in today's NYT explaining why time seems to telescope and move too fast, the older you get. It suggests things you can do to make time go more slowly, like, do something new that isn't by rote because you have to think about it and it won't just slip automatically through your fingers and brain. Learn a new language (I'm working at Icelandic and it's hard and very slow.) I've read other helpful pieces like this, assuming one is not only lonely but without resources. Use your other hand rather than your dominant one to brush your teeth or stir your porridge. Go the hard way home - not difficult for me because I have always gotten lost very easily. And there's always Lumosity, which I'm not ready for because I have work to do. I think all this is supposed to be stimulating and comforting. Okay. I'm happy for the New York Times.

Insights into other people's minds help to keep one (very) humble. I stayed overnight with a friend in Stratford and we attended WAITING FOR GODOT, but she was far more interesting than Godot, and I have come away with fresh ideas to pursue, new urls to google, and thoughts to think, lots of potential blogs, in fact. It takes the hours of a visit to discover in satisfying detail what other people are doing with their lives and time. Not an extended visit; I keep in mind what Horace and Benjamin Franklin (both) said: After three days fish or a guest stink. But overnight, for sure, with time to talk over a nightcap (or wine on the porch by lantern light), and more time over breakfast coffee. You'll note that I assume alertness both late and early. I'm a nightingale as well as a lark. Just don't talk to me in the middle of the day because that's when I fold, spindle and mutilate. So we covered, among other things, the ecosystem, weather and food, including health and nutrition; e- and print-books, the reading (contents) thereof; practical clothes, shopping for, sources and tips; and of course, our work in progress because we are both writers. No gossip, no people or character analysis - well, a little - but not to the point of malice or destruction. We part with promises to keep more in touch, knowing that we have more to learn from each other. "Go to your friend," said Kahlil Gibran, not with hours to kill but with hours to live." Yes. Thank you.