I’ve been thinking and reading and thinking. People recommend writing a pandemic journal. We do live in odd times, after all.

In the dark times

Will there also be singing?

Yes, there will also be singing.

About the dark times.

Bertolt Brecht (1898 – 1956)

So we are still telling stories—

People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it’s the other way around.

Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad (1991)

—and we are still reading them—

You read something which you thought only happened to you, and you discover that it happened 100 years ago to Dostoyevsky. This is a very great liberation for the suffering, struggling person, who always thinks that he is alone. This is why art is important. Art would not be important if life were not important, and life is important.

James Baldwin (1924 – 1987)

Because even as the sun sets, we are still sometimes passionate.

Soles occidere et redire possunt;

nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux,

nox est perpetua una dormienda.

Da mi basia mille, deinde centum,

dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,

deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum…

Suns may set and rise again;

for us, when once the brief light has set,

an eternal night must be slept.

Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,

then another thousand, then a second hundred,

then yet another thousand, then a hundred…

Catullus (84 – 54 BCE)

Stay safe and healthy and passionate at home, everyone!