another Sunday....

 this one, a difficult one. Outside it is very cold--no chance for a long walk. And yet I am restless--the thought of being "trapped" in my apartment is not fun. Would it be different, if I was not fighting the disease, or did not have the ostomy bag? Not sure---rest of the world is mostly still in isolation. 

One bright spot. Just listened to the first scene of I Due Foscari, an early opera by Verdi. Very stirring. Very stimulating---can I hear it all through today? Not sure--but it is one possibility for "growth". When I think back to a year ago today---I think I spent some time at the Fiction Center in Brooklyn--oh God, I really loved that place---then walked down the block and had hummus at the bar-restaurant that was (is) part of the Atrium across the street from the Harvey. The Lakers were playing--a primarily black clinetele was seated at the bar--shouts of "Bronnie!", which was I guess what the guys were callin Lebron. Not too comfortable there, but it does not matter---miss the whole experience. Still, on that Sunday early evening, amidst all the shouts and yells,  could anyone have thought that the city might shut down in a week? 

Tomorrow cotinue with radiation treatment, then see my oncologist and his staff---lots to do in the afternoon---library, maybe pay the phone bill; get my frightening tax work beginning. The staff at where I get my radiation is very warm and supportive---really nice---everyone totally competent and interested. What else...? Continue to be non stimulated by the books that are available to me at the apartment---have three coming from the library tomorrow, if I can get to it. One about Elizabeth's spies, one a novel called The Turner House, which I have wanted to read for a long time, and the third, the Elizabethan play called "The Two Noble Kinsmen", part of which is attributed to Shakespeare, but not included in the usual anthologies of his work. Will this enlighten me? I try (but not always succeed) to read several plays by contemporaries of Shakespeare, looking for clues that will show a similar mind or vision as his. So much mystery---so much depth--amazing that one mind could have conceived of his whole genre. Or was it? Inconsistencies in his plays...As You Like It, really two plays in one--the abrupt change in Macbeth--ending Hamlet with Fortinbras...so many questions; as I heard the playwright Atholl Fugard say, when he spoke of Hamlet at the Playwrights Conference,,,"you can't really get at it---enter it".

time to stop now...will consider doing my writing as the day goes on...will report soon.