I took a visit to my past today. A friend drove me to a small city outside of Toronto to visit mutual friends who used to live in my apartment building. I don’t like to take medicine, prescribed or not, but I took an Advil to alleviate what promised to be a long hard day: driving and sitting, sitting and talking, driving and sitting. I talked too much. I don’t have people to talk to so it was very nice to share with friends approximately my age. (No one is as old as I am, at least not no one close.)

Work on my new book was seriously interrupted by the presence of my challenged son, Matt. For almost two years we lived together mostly in lockdown for our mutual safety (Covid). I had difficulty adapting to living with another (needy) person after thirty years alone. Now that he is gone and I see him once a week for Sunday dinner I have had withdrawal symptoms. I’ve had a number of other residual problems so I haven’t yet begun to write. Soon, maybe, in 2022?

I don’t normally “talk out” my books until after I have written/ or published them but this one is different. I hare been gathering memories from a very distant past, making more sense of my life than I have ever done—though I might not be accurate in my reading of it. I talked too much to my friends as I pieced the clues together. It was a strange visit. I feel better tonight.

Maybe it was the Advil.