ADDITIONAL LETTERS

17th August 1987

As I listen to the Beethoven Quartets I am recording for you, little bubbles of beautiful memories keep floating in of the idyllic days we spent together. The staircase at Wells Cathedral, the interior of St Endellion and the many other places of beauty and antiquity we visited are evoked by the music I'm hearing.

We returned to Berkeley safe and on time. I know Tané will be writing, but I'm sure I speak for her too when I express once more our appreciation for the extraordinary experiences of our trip. You couldn't have made it any more rewarding by any means.

The most valuable aspect to be cherished is your friendship. Of course we'll keep in touch and sometime have another go at it in England or here in Western U.S.A.

Meanwhile, enjoy your next group. We will try to interest friends in one of your tours. It would be difficult not to, as enthusiasm for you and your work is unsuppressible.

With love, Jean

***

August 26th, 1987

Your packet of booklets and letters came to me yesterday. I was very deeply touched by the outpouring of your emotions which reflected a sense of loss, of tearing a wonderful fabric which was somehow the result of interweaving our three selves for some magic days. I'm sure we all felt that wholeness which you referred to, but I'm sorry it made you feel unhappy, even for a little while when it ended. I reacted quite differently, feeling instead exaltation for the privilege of that experience. I truly do not sense the end of anything, but rather delight in the memories and expectation of keeping a new friendship glowing.

I have enjoyed reading the poems of Eliot. Some of the images his words evoke, especially in the third one, are vivid impressions of much of the coast we visited together. He does make much of the human perception of time confounding ending with beginning. Why not? Don't we speak of Commencement which is a beginning at the close of some segment of education. I always marvel at the human craving for stasis, for if it is achieved, we claim to be bored and cannot wait for change. And so the three of us are somewhat changed for the better. All are enlarged by each other. If the fates are kind, we can enjoy another week even this year.

Please feel free to ramble on anytime you wish to communicate with me. I am not so able with words; music is the usual medium of expression for me, but I can respond with love if not with wisdom.

It's my son's birthday today. He'll be in for dinner and a visit. I really look forward to it as it has been a couple of months since we were last together.

There are still many mundane matters to tend to, neglected in my absence; however, I have had my bike tuned up, my car cared for, my clarinets overhauled, and now am working in the yard. A lady is to give me an estimate on painting the kitchen. If I can afford it I will have her do it, for I find the load a bit heavy. I've nearly finished one of the tactile maps which will be presented to the library in mid-Sept. and I am back to practising and rehearsing.

Thank you for all the enclosures with your letter. The T.S. Eliot is really a little gift of yourself for it has become a part of your feelings. I will cherish it and reread it. It will be a few weeks before we can let you know when we can plan to return to London. Just as soon as Tané returns from Albuquerque where she is still with her sick brother, we will make decisions.

All for now. Lots of love, Jean

***

3rd September, 1987

Dear Jean,

I've been sitting at my desk, cats all around, just reflecting. I arrived home a few hours ago having just come to the end of the literary tour with the two from New York.

I would have found it impossible to respond in the way you have to my letter, but now I feel I can write to you again. It seems to be right.

You are right too when you say we are changed for the better and enlarged by each other. I do feel exalted and privileged, but I needed reassurance; for all I knew it had just been inside my head. Don't think I am unhappy. I am still imbued with the spirit of our holiday - your spirit in particular. And it is all good, creative stuff.

Your huge quantity of dried mint arrived and smells delicious - thank you. I now have gifts from you which exercise just about every sense organ I possess and in doing so conjure up your presence!

I now have the rest of September to pull myself together, supervise Dan, construct a couple of tours for next year, assemble the Dec/Jan music details for when you next come, and do some teaching when required. This, mixed in with a new exercise regime, should keep me busy. Then in the first two weeks in October I have another tour. And another one between the 18th and 22nd.

I know I shall want to write again soon. Right now it is nearly dawn so I will go and have some rest then I might be alert enough to find the post office in the morning. Thank you for your letter - it means more to me than I can say.
11th September, 1987

I can't begin to express how delightful I find your letters. I shall respond to each part in turn......

It's hard to believe you found so many churches we failed to visit on your tour with the ladies from New York. Looking back it seemed we progressed daily from church to church, but the feeling of such visits was a circulative picture of generations of people all reaching for satisfaction in their being. It really is one valid way to find the spirit of the country.

Alan, the other of my previously two roomers, has just finished reading and enjoying your account of our trip. Stephen has phoned me once since he left last month. You are right that I miss him, but you know, I have never needed the physical presence of someone I care for in order to be content, as long as that person is happily engaged with life...Steve and I will remain close in a deep indestructible way that separation cannot harm. Right now it is important to him to dare a huge vital change. I find it exciting. It will not be hard to wait until he has time and energy to share what he can of it. I am truly not distressed by his absence....

***

16th September, 1987

Dear Jean,

I can remember the bright blue, cool autumn weather of Berkeley. So much sunshine - ours has been mostly wet lately. The good thing about English weather is all the changes and contrasts - which I know you tuned into immediately. It's a grey day today which does not declare itself - a day for being quiet and walking in the woods....

I admire your selfless response to Stephen's leaving - I've never known anyone else personally who has such a quality. True, there is no point in suffering, but people often do in spite of themselves.

I think we must share a special feeling of one-ness, but I wonder about the nature and development of such a closeness. Is it instant or born out of something? Do you think it is there all the time waiting to be discovered?

I have been back at school in the last two days - that peculiar atmosphere of the academic institution with lots of "youth" running around all over the place and lots of teachers acting like teachers in the self-conscious confines of the staff-room. I tend to do a lot of observing. But I do like to be with the kids. I was the typing and commerce teacher this week; next week I'm in cookery! Usually I can choose either to involve myself with what's going on: offer ideas, help, conversation; or else I can set a task and then stay on the outside of it as a sort of supervisor which gives me the opportunity to either think, write letters or design tours. I usually think.

The gesture contained in the act of writing to you is more important than the words. Silence is evocative, but to have silence there has to have been that which isn't silence. Good/bad, pleasure/pain, life/death, are not absolute experiences but merely opposite sides of the same reality - extreme ends of the same whole. By the very act of focusing our attention on any one concept we create its opposite. Should we aim to maintain a dynamic balance or will it happen anyway? All opposites are polar and therefore a unity.

I'll stop now. It seems to have become warmer again: the door into the garden is thrown wide open and the cats are leaping in and out playing games with the moths. Dan is asleep. All is quiet. Again, thank you for your letter which I so much enjoyed, especially the bits about your "rumour" (Alan), you being the keeper of bassoons, and the large spiked sandals!

With my love.


24th September, 1987

This is just a note to say I received your letter - you give me so much pleasure when you share with me your reflections and your daily experiences.

Tonight I listened to a tape of a little program we gave here at the house for a few friends - always we recorded such things to send to my mother because she loved the sense of being included when she could no longer leave her retirement home in Pacific Grove. I will send it to you although it will not bear close listening. Probably my motive is to give you some sense of what we accomplish playing together with our friends, not so much how skilful we can be, but how exhilarating it can be to strive towards even occasional moments of beauty. Probably you will recognize that the players are not equally adept. What matters is the common delight in trying to serve the music's demands. All that energy somehow binds the players, and to some extent the listeners, to a sense of high purpose, even when we fall short of the goal, very short, I fear.

***

School -

27th September

Dear Jean:

Outside the schoolroom windows the rain beats down hard on the heads of the students moving from one class to another. Water slides down the glass panes distorting the image of the green playing-fields and giving the group inside an enhanced sense of security and togetherness...

...I can see how busy you will be for the foreseeable future what with managing the opera orchestra, making Braille maps, writing Braille music and speaking at the piano club meeting; but I was thinking yesterday as I walked the Sussex hills about how good it would be to have you living nearby at this time of year - you would enjoy the walks so much!

....Thank you for the story of your marriage - what compulsive reading! Yes, we are the sum total of our experiences. I used to think life just happened to us before I realised that by making choices, we are in fact responsible for what happens to us. It is interesting that you've had to deal with a man and his drink problem as well; although it affects people in different ways. At worst (as far as I know), Julian is just totally self-absorbed. I really miss his friendship. We can be together at any time - I could get in touch and then we'd meet - but that wouldn't mean we were together and communicating. Maybe one day....

Do you need an object for your love and passions, something or someone to pin them on? I don't understand (and it concerns me that I don't) how it is possible to love, without becoming consumed by it, without losing something, if not all, of your "self".

17th November , 1987

.....I am also deeply moved by the Agee poem (Knoxville by Barber). It recalls summers in Indiana when I visited aged members of my mother's family in Muncie. There, the house with its large veranda was set back from the road with a huge expanse of green lawn rolling gently downhill toward a huge clump of lilacs at the bottom. In the late evening, the children would run down the grassy slope playing with Charbon, the great black poodle, and then, more quietly, collect fireflies until the elders spread quilts out for us to lie on while we watched the stars become vivid in the black sky. For a while we would try to identify constellations, but eventually sleep would overtake us. The little ones would be carried into the house. The slightly older ones listened for a bit to the old folks talking...

I visited the house from infancy till we left Indiana when I was 13. Once, when I was a toddler, I fell from the back porch and cut my chin wide open. There is still quite a scar underneath. Mother was horrified, but my father felt it wasn't necessary to stitch it (he was a doctor, you'll recall). I have thought that was a good decision since it has never been a blemish; and my memory of my aunt's house is unmarred. There was a wooden walkway across the back of the house and part way around a chicken yard. There was a corncrib and outdoor toilets away from the house. One of my strongest memories from my early childhood is the feeling of the sun on my back as I walked out to use the toilet, the dry, dusty odor of the wood, the sounds of the hens picking and scuffling in the dirt, and many other sensations of touch as I balanced somewhat precariously on the seat reaching for the torn pages from the Sear's catalogue which served for toilet paper. And the grapes hot from the sun just bursting with juice which I could pick and eat as I returned to the house - they were dark purple Concords which smelled as good as they tasted. I suppose this is the kind of recollection old people always discover when they live long enough to have such a vantage point. It is good to look back and see that these were lovely times. I couldn't guess then that life would not always be kind....

You ask me if I need an object for my love and passions. At one time I craved someone to care for and to show me affection - when things were bad with Ken. (I'm still not sure it was right to stay on with him for the children's sake, but I do not doubt that the wonderful musical life which followed was a sure path in the wilderness.) No one ever appeared, but the small musical groups such as the quartet I have described contained young men who did give me a sense of being a still attractive and feminine person. One of them I could have gotten quite involved with, but he let me know that he simply didn't want to become so close to a woman much older than he. That's what I got for finding my friends among those half a generation younger than I. Long ago I read Havelock Ellis's, "Dance Of Life", in which he posits that sexual energy can be rechanneled into creative arts, and I have come to believe that it is true. At least it beats a cold shower. I guess I have just become used to living alone. Every day is so filled with activities I enjoy or feel are necessary or worthwhile that I think it is true that I no longer feel deprived of an object of my affections. My many friends help by including me in their comings and goings. There is always someone to do things with in a companionable way. I wish I could remember a quote from "The Deer Park" comparing the advantages of friendship and lovers. Basically, friends won out not requiring possessiveness, jealousy and spent passion. If I am just rationalizing my single state, it works for me.

When I went up to the hills today to a rehearsal, the fog was obscuring the eucalyptus so that only ghostly trunks ranged up the banks. I love the fog, the impressionistic scenes all round. It's like an envelope of quiet, restful to me and very beautiful. When I arrived, we tried to play the Bach Goldberg Variations that I sent you a copy of. You never heard anything sound so awful and can't imagine that it gave the three of us so much joy.

Your Julian sounds like a girl's dream of Prince Charming. How easy it would have been for me to respond as you did to such a man. It would not have been so easy to live the mundane days of everyday life with him as with Tony perhaps. It's a little like a diet of chocolate which overwhelms your taste for it, and probably unhealthy except in small increments. But oh how sweet those bits can be.

11th January, 1988

....As to my letter seeming pensive to you: it truly doesn't have its roots in sadness because, like my Aunt Alberta, age 95, I do not look back with regret or melancholy. Instead, there is a kind of accomplishment in achieving so much history on which to reflect. Some of it is sad, but it is done. My family has always teased me with the name, "Pollyanna, the glad girl". Optimism is my natural state, so don't fret that I shall be saddened by a backward glance at life. I don't remember what I said that gave you this notion, but I really meant that I have had no-one question how I have become what I am in the way you have. The past is of course the creator of the present, so my thoughts have gone in that direction more than usual. I probably live too much in the present: from one day to another, from morning to afternoon - I fill my time so full that weeks fly by. I do tend to over-extend because it is so rare that I feel a deep fatigue....

May 13th, 1988

.....As I think about it, I believe it must have started when I was very little. I have told you a little about the cousins who were adopted into my family. Then my father died and one cousin went off to live with an aunt. In the midst of this rather melodramatic period there was a great deal of illness including the episode of near-death which happened to me and resulted in the "Kubler-Ross" experience. My grandfather came and went, in the next two years. Just before the onset of my puberty, my mother and sister and I moved to Texas, which is a radically different culture, and into an apartment. At that time I developed a ghastly case of acne such that twice I was sent home from school because the teachers thought I had some awful contagious disease. And along with the changes that befall us all at that time of life, came also my bout with undulant fever. Out of school for nearly a year, sick and dealing with ugliness, I was truly alienated from those who would have been friends.

There was a time when, convinced that I would never have a normal place in the world of people, I first sank into an abyss of teenage despair considering suicide. But, I discovered that I was more curious about the world than ready to die - I wanted to know how it would turn out. The decision to be a passive observer instead of an active participant of the social relationships around me, freed me at last from my obsession with self and most of the time self-pity. It was then that I did become deeply attached to my friend, Carol Kirkham. My health was rapidly improving so that I was back in school. The clarinet entered my life at that time also. Since I worked hard at it, I became a respected member of the band even though I had still not entered the social life of the school. Carol was a beautiful and bright young girl, but immature. She was my chum to study with, play with and share all thoughts. It was the sort of unconditional loving friendship that anyone would cherish. We never had a quarrel. It was when she left for school in Ohio and when I went off to California that I discovered the ability to rejoice in what we had enjoyed without feeling bereft. The world was a good place to be because she was in it. I told you about our efforts to communicate by letter for the whole time we were in school. Sometimes weeks would pass without hearing from her, but it did not occur to me to grieve.

As time passed I have had many friends enter my life and depart. I am vulnerable to pain if I suspect that I have failed any of them. But they are very much alive in my memory. You see, being forced to relinquish my father first and then the others at that period when impressions are formed about the ways of people with each other, caused me to let them go without desperation – they are alive in my mind. Probably because I was unable to experience the first groping attachments teenagers do, my own early introspection developed a lot of interests I could satisfy alone, especially reading. So, to this day, I'm happy alone.

But, I do love to have you express affection and caring, for you are a very special and wonderful addition to a life I now view as fortunate in friendships. Beyond the brief contacts of our trips together, the correspondence we have undertaken, however clumsy the time gaps make continuity, will slowly help to shape a truly lasting and valuable connection. Maybe your tendency to attach yourself to just one soul is the reason for such intensity. Hoping to find yourself reflected in another, a soul-mate, is particularly difficult to achieve, and even more difficult to maintain. We have a way of disappointing each other inadvertently when too much is expected.

.....reading the second page of your letter makes me wonder why you assume you have gone wrong when you feel disturbed, weak, lonely etc. Granted we do often choose the less effective path, or make mistakes in judgement which lead us to misery, still it isn't always our doing. I realize you are seeking ways of adjusting your inner life to meet these times without losing your centre of balance, and I presume that is what you mean when you speak of maintaining the same sense of self through all kinds of good and bad experiences. In itself that is probably a worthy effort, but it doesn't keep us free of struggle. You asked if I was in control. It is something I seldom consider. I like to think I do just go with the "flow" and sometimes that leads to a trip down the rapids. It seems to agree with me....

...You ask, are we masters of our fate. No, I don't think so. We can work within the parameters of events that occur to us to take the best advantage of what is offered. There are times such as the illnesses which overtake us in spite of preventive measures when we must bow to fate. Depends, of course, on how you define fate. Whatever decisions we make we describe as fateful. Is that control on our parts or just chance again? Steve once described me as resigned because I made no serious complaint when he disappointed me. He assured me he would have been very angry in my place. But resignation is too negative to describe my feeling. Just accepting.

Be assured that you are important to me. I would be happy to respond to you with just the affection you desire. I fear I cannot equal your expectations in degree. This relates to my earlier paragraph on discovering the world interesting to me even when I seemed to be excluded from the usual relationships. I used to test myself against the possibility of separation from those I cared about and came to the same conclusion. There will still be meaning and value even if the next day dawns. Perhaps that is why I have not experienced the passionate attachments you have. There is a long list of persons I have loved truly and well, men and women, quite free of passion. They are not of exactly equal worth, I suppose, but all have contributed to the feeling of well-being that informs my life.

That's more than enough of this heavy stuff. I haven't given it a thought for years. Hope you will be happy to be a member of that august company who make my life valuable to me.

I hope that you really enjoy your new trips. When you visit the places we enjoyed so much together, such as Edinburgh, try to let our happy experience color your new one. They are not to be compared. Rather than be unaffected, start out with a joyful feeling fueled by the memory of our pleasure in the place and each other. My wish for you is that you learn to regard any of life's blessings as additive to your life. Your suffering seems related always to a sense of loss and finality. The acceptance we have discussed of life's offerings is dependent on how we view time and space where these events occur.

I read the essay you sent yesterday, ‘Man and Reality’ by Huxley. His remarks on a home-made universe scooped out of the immense non-human cosmos is indeed cognizant of our stay here on earth. Night and the stars are always there, but when one considers what we know of the immensity of that universe and how hostile it is to man, I find it less comforting than the purely human world with all its miserable faults he describes. We are always trying to escape the detritus of human living which fouls the air and water, by leaving the enclaves of habitation. It seems obvious to me that all of us cannot accomplish that because there would soon be no place free of man's own mischief. In fact that is more and more the case as, in our fecundity, we outstrip the resources of the earth which are needed for survival. When people are cold or hungry, in deep need, as so many are today, the philosophies of East or West offer little to help them. They are death oriented: the root of most religions is that they promise a future life after giving up on the one we have.

In my pragmatic way, I feel it necessary not to become detached from all this, but seek ways and means to provide for all with regard to what the earth offers us. To learn to husband its resources and above all cut down on our numbers.....I would hope that the men of intellect and good-will would now turn all of their skill and attention to learning how we can live with world governance. Ideally it would mean obeying "the laws of that greater non-human cosmos" of which we are indeed a part. Instead of attempting human control of it all, we need to accept our place in it, and learn to actively be a part of it. Instead of trying to contravene the natural, earthly activities by twisting them for material gain. I suspect the forces of the natural world are so much greater than we acknowledge that man will always be reduced to size by famine, plagues, massive upheavals, etc.

As to his comment on ethical conduct, I have often felt that motivation for actions is less important than the outcome. Goodness does manifest itself in spite of the wills of individuals. I guess my basic reaction to his position (and yours) about inhibiting our personal egoistic cravings and aversions is that it is, at the least, an unlikely development in humankind. He has needed that energy as an animal in survival. I would like to think that we as a people could use the energies that are inherent in man to work toward a good without trying to change him too much. Mainly because I think it may work better. Use his selfish interests to get him to willingly give up destructive ways. I see it here in the drought where the entire Bay Area is already living with many inconveniences because the people are totally aware of the danger. Our lawns die; we bathe less often in a basin; we save "grey" water only used for washing; our cars are dirty. It works with an unbelievable number of the population. Very few place their own desires ahead of the common good. The water authorities have been amazed.... (Jean)


Oct. 16, 1989

Dearest Gillian:

You doubtless know how completely you have entered my life. It is hard to remember that you have not always shared my past, but good to believe that the future will include us together. I find that you are a part of everything I do and think now. Listen to this silly little astrological prediction I told you about in our phone call (by the way, if I sounded a little strange or restrained, it was because my friend Clara was in the next room dressing to go to lunch, and I realized I had to call you then or wait much too long) :

"Libra - The New Moon brings the prospect of a major upheaval that much closer, if only because it’s time to say goodbye to a number of people and places that no longer have any role in your life. You are an independent soul by nature, so you should be quite happy to set on a new adventure, taking life as you find it.”

That was quite startling as the first thing I saw after I left you at the airport. Well it is happening. On Friday I turned over all the orchestra material to my successor at the Berkeley opera. Richard said he was sorry to hear I was leaving, but delighted that I had already set up a replacement. I am telling everyone that I will go to England in Feb. for an indefinite stay of up to 6 months. So far the only person who has not been really happy for me and encouraging is John Di who is as you know in love with me for all the good it does. He will miss me, but for more than one reason. He has just returned from Washington, D.C. where he has been offered a job as the official music Braille author who will correct all music accepted by the Library of Congress. He asked me to be his official copy-holder, a term that means I read the print, from which he determines the Braille edition. We would both receive the same pay - nominal but gives the job a feeling of more than volunteering. I said yes with the exception of the time I would be in England. He is now consulting with our employer to see if this would be acceptable........

Alan is much better. His cold is passing quickly and he is quite sure he can take care of everything in the house but the watering - that may be the last really tricky problem to solve, when I depart. This entire trip to England seems a sure thing now and so soon. Do you have that sense of it too? Of course, your trip here is so soon this may be the only letter to you. I do so look forward to having you near again. I have told others that you are coming. Betty and Gloria were expecting you to come along -with me when I returned. Some have asked if I am to stay with you in England I just say yes. The details can wait. I am on the track of a viola teacher too although it's not certain at all who that might be. So we make progress. Forgive that little insertion of info about your arrival. I came back from the phone and realized I hadn't mentioned it, but my one-track mind led right on to the clarinet doings. Hope it doesn't sound inhospitable. It's the real reason for writing you, to say come, Gill, I love you.

That's all for now. probably the phone will serve better next time.

Jean


11th October, 1989

Dear Jean,

I've been debating whether to write or tape. It does feel odd to finally be reduced to communicating with you like this again - But it feels best out of the available options at this time. And later I will phone you — either this evening or tomorrow. I am making assumptions that you are proceeding with your life in the way you anticipated and also that you might be 24 hours behind me in feeling "back to normal" - which I think I now feel because I went back to school today. I adapted so smoothly that no join was discernible to anyone; not even me. I talked to a whole lot of people, new and old, and masqueraded as a teacher before 6 groups with ease - So all that has happened in our 6 weeks together can only have been good - usually I feel the ill-effects of reinstitutionalisation.

But now is the first time I've felt equal to writing to you: I've felt very tired and. have slept deeply and for- many hours at night. All that travelling with no purpose other than enjoyment takes its toll!

And returning into the safe folds of the family circle has been to step back in from where I stepped out. Everyone is content nothing untoward has taken place - They're all pleased to see me but they don't seem to be in need of me - So after a suitable period of time which should include Half-Term so that I'm here to keep Daniel out of trouble, I'll feel free to come to you. Does the 15th November sound like a good date?

It's a strange feeling, and perhaps you have it too, to feel that you're in the right place but without the right person. And I suppose the "right" feeling I get about this place is just related to its familiarity. I still don't feel entirely happy about your uprooting yourself from Berkeley. There's nothing to keep me here except a moral obligation to my family (and I'm not sure they recognize that); whereas there's so much to keep you in Berkeley. We mustn't be too hasty. If we need to be with each other we'll find our natural place in the fullness of time 1ike water.

I look forward to hearing about all you've been doing - I will welcome tape or letter (it turns out). Every so often I find myself enjoying something I am doing and I wish like anything that you were there enjoying it with me; or at the very least that you were nearby to tell before the day's over. Two examples spring to mind: I watched a play the other-afternoon - I was very tired and the only muscles I could move were my eyeballs - And it was so enjoyable and I knew you would have enjoyed it as much — it was a sort of "Rain Woman", so that was interesting; but it was also interesting to watch the 2 women creating such magic between them- I'll enclose a short article on it just to give you the flavour.

And the other time I wished you were sitting next to me was at lunchtime today when a young girl (18 years) was playing the recorder with such feeling during a little recital (next week she participates in The Young Musician Of The year Contest!) at school.

But it's impossible to really convey our experiences isn't it. I tell people about our - holiday, but they can't really know. And how much can they or should they know? Communicating is much more to do with the communicator rather than the communicatee donchathink?

We became progressively closer over the 6 weeks so that at the end I was seeing reflections of me in you, we became more like each other, more in sympathy; more like one. So it's inevitable we should strain towards more sharing, isn't it.

I've shared holiday stories with my parents - exchanged them actually for they had been away and gathered new experiences too - and with Ian and Sheela, and Scilla- I've talked with Sue on the phone and we'll be meeting for lunch at Elsted on Saturday.

I haven't started to conscientiously get fit yet but plan to tomorrow if I'm not wanted in school. Imagine being woken by a phone call at 7-5Oam saying be in school by 8.20 - that was somewhat of a shock to the system this morning. And it's odd how much more tiring school work is than office work, despite the earlier finishing time by 2 hours.

By the time you receive this I expect we will have talked on the phone. But be sure and let me know of all your interactions with people; all your feelings (if you know what they are); and all your intentions. Memory is wonderful, I keep seeing scenes of us in different places. You did wonderfully well to put up with me for so long. I'm ready to spend more time with you now, but I did need this stasis to recoup. The still point feeds the identity. It's like you said - you needed to go home to fill yourself up again.

Well, I dearly hope you are enjoying being back with all those folks - I love to think of you interacting with them all, woven together with music. I'll write more when I know more. Meantime I love you more than words can express.

PS The cats are wonderful to be with and very fit (despite Kitty's worms and the mess she'd made on my bed.)

I've finally shampoo-ed the sitting-room carpet which fills me with immense pleasure - like floating on the sea.

The marmalade is delicious and almost gone. The jam will be delivered to Mother. The bulb, which is still very healthy, will be planted when I get into the yard, eventually.

The weather is still grey and quite cold with sunny periods - No memorable outings as yet.