Dearest loves, up in the aerie, fluorescent gray outside extinguishing to dusk. I sit down at my desk in lamplight, set to write to you, thinking what to write. I'm wearing five thin layers (I count them), some cotton, some cashmere, in shades of beige, pink, and gray, with an added black acrylic sweater draped on my shoulders. A disc of Bach partitas arranged for 8-string guitar plays on the CD. The classical guitar meanders, tinkles, lilts, and plucks while Gwynnie and Claire, in separate chairs, gently sleep, and downstairs D putters in the kitchen getting dinner together, chicken to roast, potatoes, brussel sprouts and squash. In the separate percussive score from downstairs, a knife chops, dishes clink, pots clatter, while up here I too without regard to the cadences of the Bach, sneeze and blow my nose, crumpling tissue after spent tissue. I spent much of the day in bed dozing on and off, and while awake, either reading pages of a Chekhov story, Ariadne, or (incredibly, it seemed to me in my semi-fevered state), when I put the book down, returning to unremittingly amorous thoughts of you, my dearest. Ah, but we can't do anything about it tonight. I look a fright, my skin feels hot, and I don't want to give you this cold. So, my love, for once we'll have to just regard each other from afar, safe behind windows, and hope for my rapid recovery so that our tireless amatory peregrinations, innovative as a line of Bach, in quest of undiscovered silken crevasses, can resume as before, and I can go on walks too if the snow ever stops falling. Outside, darkness settles in blue-black folds. In the Bach, single picked notes each follow the next in precise succession, perambulate quizzingly, and come to, if not an answer, then quiet unresolved acceptance, or merely, for now, an end.