Kartooms - M. G. Stephens;Archie Rand

Here I am just north of Chicago, feeling like an exiled T’ang poet a millennia and a half ago, missing New York but knowing that I may never get back to it, missing certain others and realizing I will never see them again or maybe I will but only briefly, making the separation even more intense. Friends have died already this year. I will never see them again, though I can hear their voices, even as I type this. They had such rich voices, marvelous and thrilling even. In a round-about way, I am heading to West Hollywood next week for about a week, then off to Dublin for three days, then three more days just outside of Galway, traveling with my daughter and her two daughters, three generations of travelers. Then it is back to LA for a few days, and then full-circle back to Chicago after midnight and after a fortnight away. Blue but not depressed. Determined, though tired, and now going blind. It is the first time in my life I have wanted to read Milton’s poem about going blind. Perhaps I will get someone to read it to me later.