Okay, this isn’t a picture of my apartment.  It just feels that way.

Today is my first day out and about after almost a week of isolation.  The Covid symptoms lifted overnight on Thursday.  Et voilà … I’m no longer infectious.

As I walk the streets of Gent centrum, I vaguely remember my newer home city.  Looking out the windows of Izy Coffee, I’m not quite there on the cobbles of the Langemunt.  As James Joyce said in his novel Dubliners, “Mr. Duffy lived a short distance from his body.”  I can relate, James.

I was so dull during those six days.  I couldn’t locate the essence of Bruce, except when I sat down to write.  Thank God for this blog, and for knowing that some people are reading my words.  Like you!

The worst of the lot was the oppressive fatigue, the “I don’t care”, the daytime sojourns in bed – always with the blinds lowered.

Sometimes I talk of my energy flowing out to the people of the world, of loving the folks I walk by.  I lost that connection this week – except for my written words, my reading, and the few times I had the energy to meditate.

I kept people safe.  I kept me safe.  The human beings I encountered and loved were within the pages of Stephen King’s Fairy Tale and in a few Zoom meetings of the Evolutionary Collective.  Thank you, Stephen and the EC, for the lifeline.

Tomorrow I get on a train and roll to Wuppertal, Germany.  On Tuesday evening I hear Chris de Burgh in concert.  May I have the energy for all this new moving.

Jonathan Sacks wrote this …

Life needs its pauses, its chapter breaks, if the soul is to have space to breathe

Well said, Jonathan

On to Germany