So far, so good. The snow we thought would dump to our knees is only finger-deep. Sleet ticks against the window as I write. Nobody in the neighborhood has left their houses this morning, and the white outside is pristine. It stretches as far as I can see without tire tracks or footprints. Puffs of steam drift from rooftop ventpipes. Tiny homemade clouds.
The tree limbs are bare: no sodden snow sticks to them. No ice makes them sparkle. Sleet drops at a shallow angle: the wind is barely a breeze, nothing heavy whips in it. All of this is auspicious for us keeping power.
Even if we lose it later today, when the freezing rain sets in, I can sit by the window for light to read physical books. I’m currently making my way through Kafka’s complete stories. I have it in paperback so I can underline, and it’s going much better now that I’ve committed to pause and reflect after everything I read. I’d started these stories last year and other than The Metamorphosis, which really is a spectacular story, everything I read just left me like, huh? I had to text my son after each one: what the heck is going on here? Now that I stop and write, I’m getting a lot more out of the stories. They’re satisfying in that they make me think and question; nothing is tied up in a neat bow. Not a single thing.
In our storm prep, after charging our power banks, I charged my e-reader and my portable book light. So once the sun drops, I can still read a novel even if the power goes out. I downloaded two from the library. We’ve also started building up our bookshelves again, and I’ve got three on the shelf I’m eager to read.
The New Yorker did not arrive yesterday, alas. I had hoped to read it next to the window with my coffee on a snowy Sunday morning. It’s okay. I finished 33 Place Brugmann instead. At first I wasn’t sure about the book. I almost abandoned it, despite it seeming like something I’d really like: a WWII novel told by the residents of an apartment building in occupied Brussels. I had trouble keeping track of the characters at first. But given the leisure of the weekend, I stuck it out, and it paid off. It turned out to be a book about, among other things, the role of art and ideas in civilizations that last. Which I am into.
Now, I’ll read another Kafka story. Yesterday’s was “In the Penal Colony,” which is brutal, and eerily prescient. I would have thought it was written about Hitler and his regime, but it was not. The story predates WWII by 15 years. Today’s story is “The Village Schoolmaster.” There is no telling where this is going to go.
Butterfly Mind 