The Collapse CL: Loafing

 27 July 20XX +1

My Dear Lucilius:

Where does the time go! My sincere apologies for the delay in writing (I say “delay”; it is not as if I have any idea when or even if you will read this); these last four days have been an odd collection of recovery and action.

The “recovery”, of course, has been that of a man in his later years recovering from what can only be generously called a cross country hike. The day after we arrived was the worst; three days of on the road finally caught up with me and I was – slowly – able to make my way around the house and out to the garden to see how things were going for the first time in a week. They are going well, if that is of interest – my wife has years of experience here, compared to my relative handful of years and in fact, this may be the best the garden has looked.

The following days were all a little better: a little less sore, a little more agile. I suppose on the bright side, I am now aware of where points of pain and even arthritis will continue to develop over the next ten years. Not that it is helpful information of course, but it is information of sort.

The “action” is simply doing the things here that need to be done, as much as we can: continuing to work the garden and the small plot of grain we have, caring for the quail (and burying a couple; two years really is their lifespan), even checking in on the bees once (they are doing fine, thank you). Pompeia Paulina has pulled my dehydrator drying racks and put them into the sun with a window screen to dry as much as we can outside; our living room now holds the earliest of peppers, slowly drying as well. It is a big push, but she (and I) are conscious of the fact it is the end of July; within two months we could be facing snow already. And unlike last year, there is little enough of a previous year’s shopping bounty to bolster us.

The wheat? I will be honest in that I have been forbidden to mention anything about the wheat for a full week. When I tentatively raised the question – once – I was firmly told that “Young Xerxes was seeing to it and I am to do nothing but recover and spend time with your wife”. I gather that something is in motion somewhere; I may gently push again in a few days.

As Pompeia Paulina did point out, I have been gone a bit lately and she would like to see me. And so we have spent the last four days more or less by ourselves, confining ourselves to the small and regular chores on the property.

It strikes me as odd, Lucilius, as I sit here this evening as I have for the last three. There remains enough light to doing things: Pompeia Paulina sits on the couch working away at the stitching of something and I sit here at the table writing to you now. Both of us have cups of tea by– reused tea bags of course, so the tea is very weak but tea none the less. The smartphone is playing Handel’s “Music for Fireworks”: except for music and photos, it has little use without connectivity and remains easy enough to recharge. It remains a reminder of a world where something of beauty existed beyond what we can see in front of us.

As we sit here, I am struck by the fact that I had seen my grandparents doing the same thing so many years ago, my grandmother doing a crossword or reading or crocheting while my grandfather sat in his chair and read one of the books they left here for that purpose or the thin local newspaper that was published once a week. Music would be playing – music of the ‘30’s, ‘40’s, and ‘50’s in this case, the songs that they knew or perhaps the local AM station, crackling with static and local news and community events. My grandfather would fall asleep and then snore and my grandmother would nudge the chair enough to wake him up. In their retirement this was their Summer life, up here fishing and playing cards with neighbors and hosting their children and grandchildren when they came to visit.

How odd, Lucilius, that this seems nearer than ever and yet so far, far away.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca