December 22nd, 2023

Half light the 22nd of December at 10:20.

The apartment has a fond d’air froid, creeping cold, but not yet penetrating.

My mind turns to Charles Ives: the sarabande from Bach’s sixth keyboard partita playing softly in the livingroom is the anchor of this moment of experience, riven in two by the spinning laundry in the kitchen and the pounding sledgehammers in an apartment below me—and yet the sarabande holds its integrity, such is its depth, such is its inviolable strength and beauty. B minor: key of human suffering at the moment when the half light seems to lift momentarily. Charles would have been amused

My morning has been interior; reading Jaccottet, Handke, listening to ambient sounds of others living their lives in the building. A centered silence can open infinite paths to the outside.