THE TIDE IS LOOSED

I don't know about you, but I am in one of those "slouching towards Bethlehem" moods. What with the chain-reaction of tragedy in Japan, which for a few moments has taken our attention from Wisconsin, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Darfur, the US Senate, Wall Street, and Charlie Sheen. The news just isn't very good.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere...

And then the time change. That lost hour we pay for spring and the coming of more light. Oh, we will forget all about it in a few weeks when we are strolling around Prospect Park at 8pm, but now it throws many of us into further discombobulation. There were reports of howling hipsters, the young and the drunk prowling around the Village, Greenwich and East, as they were cut off an hour early last night. And it was warm enough to prowl and howl in reasonable comfort.

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

That sounds like the bar across the street. My windows were wide open over my bed. The springchill air felt great until this morning. I woke up around 6, only to hear my SMS chirp. As I need to crawl toward the loo, I picked it up. Another non-sleeper in the quiet morning light. We talked on the telephone for an hour until the wind picked up and we each felt sleepy at our ends of the line.

The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

My dear friend John whose Mom is aging, is dealing with family problems mostly associated with all those difficult decisions that arrive just at the moment the reality of finality does. Finding a suitable nursing home. Dealing with MediCare. Grieving AND financial planning. Everything hurts.