Winter technically arrives in a couple of days, but it has been at the Berkeley Repertory Theater for a couple of months in the form of Wintertime. I don’t understand what anyone sees in Charles Mee’s 1988 play. I’m not sure why the Rep produced it, except that the thing is popular in some circles. Wanted to bring the audiences back. I get it. I just didn’t like the play, but never mind. I liked being in the theater. I liked being part of a live audience. Jane and I hit the road at intermission, which I liked in some ways, but regretted in others. I personally learn something from badly crafted literature. I don’t expect Jane to share this odd love. And it was nice to head home, wander into Canyon Market with my wife, feeling grateful and proud that I have one. The wife, that is.

And there was a chance that maybe the pandemic could someday be over. It certainly isn’t now. And Jane regretted taking BART across the bay. I didn’t share this regret but I understood. Personally, I have been swayed by the news coverage. Our regional transit line has installed air filters and gotten the circulation going in all of its new cars. And retrofitted its old cars. We are supposed to be COVID-19 safe bopping around in the regional underground system. I prefer to believe this. I really have no particular reason not to. It’s just that life has to go on, however infectious.

That said, I must say I would rather not get the disease. My breathing capacity is already reduced to something like 50% of adequate. Enough already.

Meanwhile, no one can complain about the rain. The latter is never strained and falleth like the quality of mercy, to misquote Shakespeare. I had given up on adequate rainfall. I was trying not to resign myself to another horrendous year of wildfires, smoke, dry reservoirs in the news, and so on. But it seems this was not to be. True, the atmospheric spigot could turn off at any moment. But for now, the storms keep coming. What a relief. The earth seems fruitful again. And it is cold, relatively speaking, for Northern California. Today the high was 48°F, which in the rest of the world, is about 9°C. As I say, cold for these parts.

And the days are short. This is the one thing that seems destined to remain reliable. There’s much that can be screwed up in this world, but orbiting is not one of them. At least I think not. You can pollute the planet, but it is still going to spin and stay in whatever orbit it feels like. And are there any other signs of hope? Doubtless. Among the latter is the nation’s short attention span. This is actually a good thing, politically, because some of the nation’s lost who had glommed on to Donald Trump, may be beginning to forget about him. Been there done that. Other politicians are even better at proto-fascism, perhaps. Who knows, but by the autumn of 2022, there may just be barely enough sanity in the world to slightly exhaust the ultra-right. Just slightly. And, no, I am not betting any money on this. But one needs hope.

I begin to worry when I find myself logging on too frequently to the Cunard website. I like to see where the Queen Mary 2 is. I don’t really care where it is. As long as it’s going somewhere. This last summer the world’s only surviving true ocean liner was sailing in circles around the UK. Yes. Truly. COVID-19 had done that to ship travel. And once before I die, I would like to again experience this odd sensation of being pleasantly cut off from the world for a week, while heading home via New York and knocking off five hours of jetlag. Ah, let’s see. Those seven days provide a chance to wander up to the large and beautifully designed ship’s library. The latter is built into the bow, meaning that the pointed end of the ship forces the walls into a slant. Here, some wise designer took advantage of this architectural constraint to build a series of small reading areas, each with its own window, naturally staggered at an angle, a place to muse and watch the waves go by. As one can also do in the bar built into the hull one deck above, or is it below? Can’t remember, in truth. But there is one thing about the ship. I can more or less remember how to get around. And it’s important, because when you’re on board a thing that’s one fifth of a mile long, finding your way to the right elevator for the right deck with the right thing…well, it’s a challenge.

But for now the ship is a fantasy. The real action is on the ground. The literary ground. Mine.

I hired a freelance editor who works at UC Press full time, and has squeezed me in on the weekends. Believe me, once she’s done with my manuscript, there won’t be any embarrassing typos. Not to mention odd word choices, discontinuities, or anything. Actually, this may be overkill at the present moment. I don’t know. My one previous experience with publication involved a small press with husband and wife in New York. Their editing was light and hasty. This isn’t.

And tomorrow and tomorrow. I do find that I have to be careful what I read. My library group has chosen Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar” for our January read. Which might be splendid were I younger and not seeing the angel of death hanging over everything, including me, America, Amtrak and other stuff I care about. What we need for these trouble times is a musical comedy version of “The Bell Jar.” There doesn’t seem to be one. Perhaps I should write it. In my spare time. Tomorrow and tomorrow.