Dear Alex,

Thank you for your e-mail. "Appreciative" is not the right
word to describe how I feel about what you wrote.

Margaret is still asleep. When she awakens I will tell her
"I am Jochen," will change her underwear, offer her drink and food,
and sit by her bed until she falls asleep again. I'm grateful for
the opportunity to do for her what little I can; it's not a burden.

Sharing this experience of commingled life and death with her, is, 
for the moment, the focus of my existence. I'm not in pain; I'm not 
suffering; and yesterday's twinge of depression subsided with my 
recognition that I'm required neither by law nor by morals to answer 
the telephone. The silence has been very soothing. I decide from day 
to day what to do.

When I'm not taking care of Margaret I escape into writing. I've
long since reconciled myself to the fact that I write only for myself.
Late in the evening when I can no longer untangle my thoughts, I
listen to CD's of the Bach Cantatas, using a set of high quality
earphones that Klemens gave me. For some reason I started with 
Cantata No. 35., last night I had gotten to No. 60. While listening
I follow the score on the computer screen. As you probably know,
the entirety of Bach's works is accessible on the Internet in the
original Bach Gesellschaft edition several volumes of which Margaret
gave to me soon after we had fallen in love.  Each re-hearing is a 
revelation of something new.

Your comments in a recent letter, if I understand them correctly, that
our most recent memories overlie and mask prior ones, coincides with 
my own exerience, has most likely a compelling neuro-physiological
basis, and is highly relevant not only to my own awareness of the 
present but to Margaret's as well. It's the obvious secret of history 
that the tale of the past, when it is told, does nothing but embellish 
the present, because the past, no matter how much we yearn for it, is 
forever inaccessible.

The extinction of the past by the present is a reality of human existence
which, though denied in the History Department is celebrated with a
vengeance by the theologians with their doctrine that All's well that 
ends well, e.g. the confession of sins, death bed conversions and final 
unction. So there's hope even for me.

To make a beginning, I ask forgiveness for my babbling. My wish and hope
is that you be as happy and content as circumstances permit.

Love, Jochen