I’m sitting in the back room of Milia’s Coffee, supposedly because that’s the only place I can charge my phone.  The truth, though, is that I need a place of sanctuary … at a distance from other people but still connected within the open spaces of the café.

This is a different Bruce, a weary one.  My Polar watch says my “Actual Sleep” last night was nine hours and thirty-two minutes.  Woh – that’s a lot of snoozing!

Wuppertal boasts many hills and my post-Covid bod is struggling.  But that’s okay: Chris de Burgh shows up in my world tomorrow evening.

My cappuccino companion of the moment is the eleven-year-old Malcolm in Philip Pullman’s novel La Belle Sauvage.

Malcolm had never had a conversation like the one that followed.  At school, in a class of forty, there was no time for such a thing, even if the curriculum allowed it, even if the teachers had been interested.  At home it wouldn’t have happened, because neither his father nor his mother was a reader.  In the bar he was a listener rather than a participant and the only two friends with whom he might have spoken seriously about such things – Robbie and Tom – had none of the breadth of learning and the depth of understanding that he found when Dr Relf spoke.

To be clear, Malcolm is the son of an innkeeper, and most evenings he serves the guests who show up in the lounge.

But far beyond the details, there is a broad meaning in this paragraph that sings to my soul.  Like Malcolm, I yearn for conversations that are real, where we throw our lives into the air and see how they land with the other person.  Not sports scores, not politics …  The joys and sorrows of the Spirit.

Thank you, Philip and Malcolm, for the reminder of what I hold dear.

***

There was a Zoom call with the Evolutionary Collective this afternoon that I had committed to attend.  I was determined to keep my word, and just as committed to not climb the long hill to my Airbnb to take the call.

I sought a park – somewhere quiet.  Google Maps showed me one and I headed there, not realizing that it involved another hill, on the far side of downtown.  “Climb the hill, Bruce.  Covid is done.”

Well, on one level it’s done but my fatigue is lingering.  I would have taken a video of “Old Man Climbing” but it escaped my mind.

I found a bench with a sweet bed of flowers in front.  Voilà:

Minutes later, it started to rain.  Up with my umbrella.  The Weather Network said “It’s not raining.”  The umbrella begged to differ.  The app said rain will start soon and continue for awhile.  It was ninety minutes till the Zoom call.  (Sigh)

I trudged home … down, then level, then up.  All of me was at a low ebb.  Then my Internet connection was wonky during the  call.

Still … I notice I’m alive.  That will do nicely.

Until tomorrow …