Dear Nikola,

Thank you for your letter, which I must not summarize or paraphrase, but which speaks, very eloquently, for itself. I very much hope that the future will confirm its message of recovery and well-being.  Science fiction, along with detective stories, is a genus of literature I have deliberately avoided, relapsing to my fathers' oft repeated dictum about many facets of culture "Das hat mit mir nichts zu tun." (That has nothing to do with me.) Yet, I think I should be able to learn from every source, inclusing science fiction, computer games, etc.  The limitations are time and energy. Time passes ever more swiftly, and energy is inherently limited. I try to do the best I can. In addition, and parallel with the 19th German century history by Franz Schnabel, which I cited, I've also been reading from my parents' library, a monograph about the Swiss physician Paracelsus von Hohenheim (1493-1541) by the Heidelberg literary historian Friedrich Gundolf (1884-1931) whose elegant and sophisticated writing I very much admire. Meanwhile, I've put my own writing on hold, but I trust only temporarily.

My relationship to others I find very interesting, important and problematic.  It's no excuse for my own shortcomings, that I that all relationships I have had the opportunity to observe in my own family have been fraught with disappointment and pain. I remember my mother's citing from the novelist Paul Heyse: "Wer sich an andre hält,/ dem wankt die Welt./ Wer auf sich selber ruht,/ steht gut." (Who clings to others/ his world sways./ Who rests upon himself,/stays.) For 63 years, I was fortunate to have found a woman who could tolerate me. Since her death, 5 years ago, I have (re)learned to be alone.  

Stay well and give my regards to your parents.
EJM
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I had my own thinking on myth recently, in the midst of what I called 
my shallow pursuits. Aside from randomly searching for things on the internet---
-mostly about rockets, which for some reason I find comforting and less 
unenjoyable than other things-----I've been watching or mostly rewatching 
popular science fiction, like Star Wars. It occurred to me as I was doing 
this that there is something fundamentally different about our age. 
Past ages made up myths about the past; we have myths about the future. 
I wonder if one could pinpoint the time when this shift happened. 
Marxism, I suppose, is in part a myth about the future, 
and Jules Verne really began the genre of science fiction 
(though there were earlier examples). However a good deal of Jules Verne 
is set in the present, so I would set the origin of the shift 
to future-myth in the twentieth century, in the 20's and 30's.

Incidentally, much of science fiction is of very poor literary quality, 
with the exception of the Polish author Stanislaw Lem. 
His Solaris is one of the great books I have read. 
I am sure there is a direct translation from Polish to German 
(English-speakers have to make do with a translation to English via the French).
It is a short book and a good read, and it touches on subjects 
I know you are very much concerned with: the possibility of communication, 
the presence of memory.

Your waking up at 7 am is a healthy practice, one I have not been adhering to. 
I appreciate your wishes for me to be well, but most days I am cowering in bed,
 more or less, and sleeping fitfully at night. That is not being well.

I had a pronounced allergy attack on Wednesday, 
and since it seemed possibly consistent with Covid 
I am getting a test tomorrow. Until then I am technically obliged 
to quarantine. I've seen nobody while down in Boston anyway, 
but staying inside in this condition feels like solitary confinement.

I do wish I knew how to be content with solitude as you are. 
If I can manage it it will be a very great skill, 
for then I will not be obliged to make compromises for companionship. 
Perhaps there has been a bit of an opening today: 
I had elaborate dreams as I slumbered until noon, 
and then got up for some reason feeling able to write. 
So far today I have written ten pages edging into the subject of what happened 
to me this year, hoping to uncover what I did. 
It is in the form of a reply to a distant friend. 
I was tempted to send it to you, 
but not sure if I should wait until it is in a more complete form.

I think I have needed to write this story down for some time, 
but mostly I did not have the wherewithal. 
It seems like the step that preposes before doing other things. 
Perhaps once I have written it I shall have some more understanding, 
and then I will be able to move on.

As I was driving back from the Covid test site yesterday 
(it was, in the event, not a test, but a screening for the test: 
tests before tests, and so on ad infinitum), 
I heard Bach's Fourth Orchestral Suite on the radio. 
I realized then why I was avoiding music and literature all this summer; 
Bach did touch me (I had been afraid that music would not touch me at all), 
but as I was touched, I felt a very great pain. 
I have stuck to shallow pursuits to avoid this pain.

Is it, perhaps, the pain of having a loving heart? 
I loved David Gonsalves, and suffered greatly for this love. 
I am not sure that I loved Michael Ochoa, 
but I certainly felt an affection for him, 
one that turned ultimately to dread and a sense of betrayal. 
So perhaps my anomie is utterly reasonable: 
since Bach is capable of inducing love, 
perhaps I must avoid Bach until I have figured out how to love safely.

But perhaps Bach was also the first step: 
Bach one day, and my ability to write returns the next.