Dear Anne,

Thank you for your letter. In about an hour I'll be off to the Watertown
Home Depot to pick up eight replacement windows which Klemens and I will
install, if possible before it gets too cold, in the second floor of the 
old part of this house.

Thank you for your letter. I think I have some idea of what Dan and you
are experiencing in the course of these days, weeks, months. I've always
considered the physician's primary task not to "cure" the illness, but
to mediate between the patient and implacable nature, what the English
call fate, the Germans, "Schicksal", the Ancient Greeks, "Moirai". I wish
I could help.

You asked about the writing in which I've invested my life. There are
six volumes of novels, all in German, in print, without a single copy
having been sold. I've long since given up on potential readers, learned
to accept with equanimity that I write for myself, to myself. If you're
curious, I refer you to my website: http://home.earthlink.net/~ernstmeyer
and its items in English.
   1. Preface (English)
   2. Vorwort
   3. Auswanderung
   4. Litigation (English)
   5. Sonetten
   6. Oden
   7. Romane
   8. Tagebuecher
   9. Notes (English)
  10. Glaucoma Letters (English)
  11. Book Group (English)
  12. Verbindungen (links)

9. Notes include an autobiographical essay 1) With the Flanders,
mu obituary for my only sister 2) Margrit Meyer (1928-2009)
two stories which I wrote for an Internet Health Care Discussion
group (3. and 4.) and 5) a childrens story for my grandchildren.
Of the self-promotional 10) Glaucoma Letters only nos. 1,2 and 3
are likely to be of interest. 11) Book Group contains a set of essays
born of frustration with a Belmont Library Book Group which I
attended for several months to keep my wife company.
A few of the diary entries (8. Tagebuecher) are also in
English; I haven't indexed them by language. 
http://home.earthlink.net/~ernstmeyer/freunde/appendix.html
is a translation into English of the first chapter of volume I
of the novel "Vier Freunde" (Four Friends). This is a text which
grates on my ears because it lacks the melodiousness of the 
original German. If you go to the trouble, read it as a parody
and parable of my own arrival at Harvard College in 1946, notice
the pervasive conflicts of language - the native language transplanted
into a foreign soil - the commentary on dream and reality.

That should be enough for today. Stay well, and as happy as circumstances
permit.

Jochen