Dear Cyndy,

Thank you for your letter, which I can't reread just now, because it's filed
on the computer across the hallway; while I  am using a laptop on a bedside
table from which I can intermittently reach out to hold Margaret's hand. She
is confused; she want to get up, and doesn't understand why she's not able.
I offer to move her to her rocking chair with the hydraulic lift, but that's
not what she had in mind. This morning she resisted for about an hour having
me replace her soiled underwear, - with the remarkably perceptive explanation,
that a lot of people walk around that way. All the physicians in the immediate
family - and there are five of us - agree that if at all possible we should
forestall or alleviate anxiety with empathy rather than with medication. I'm
trying hard, and I hope I'm not deceiving myself with the thought that I have
been largely successful.

Taking care of Margaret unavoidably keeps me near her bedside and interferes
with my diverse projects of putting the house in order. Aside from a long
(9 page) letter (in German) about molecular biology, I haven't done any new
work on my novel. I'm toying with the possibility of engaging Katenus as
a non-scientific commentator about scientific issues on the premise that
the various sciences, especially the natural sciences, are cabals which
promote insoluble challenges for political purposes, e.g. cosmology with its 
postulate of a "big bang" as the physical expression of a mathematical 
singularity, molecular biology with its presumption of explaining human 
nature as a sequence of four chemical compounds, quantum mechanics with 
insoluble incongruities that Katenus is not yet ready to define. All this 
an echo of the classical concept of a unity of knowledge  hypothetically 
accessible to all of us who are educated. Hence the universal application 
of the distinction of the "Ph.D.".

For all that, I've not been working hard enough, and I permit myself to
be distracted by the social complexity and complications of taking care
of Margaret whose three siblings and four grandchildren don't always
agree with my interpretation of her needs. But I do the best I can, 
and send my best wishes for an healthy and happy summer's decline
to both Ned and yourself. 

Jochen