The Center

It has been pleasant having too much to do lately to have time left to listen to the damn American news, which I find keenly irritating and oppressive. How much better it is to wake up next to a woman, admire the honey-hued halo of her hair on the pillow, sense her measured breathing, still sleeping. How much better to quietly converse about nothing over tea than to listen to endless commentary regarding the latest mass mass shooting, the most recent eradication of civil rights so long fought for and painfully won, the newest insult to common decency and civility once taken for granted. The center is not holding, chaos is descending upon the world--but not here in my little house at the end of this sunny lane. Not yet for two days to come, anyway.