The Collapse: CLVIII: Worry

17 August 20XX+1

Dear Lucilius:

It’s Pompeia Paulina.

I had to make Seneca promise to 1) let me write and 2) promise not to read it. He was agreeable to the second but the first one – let me write to you or, as he put it, “Write a letter to a person we will likely never see”, seemed to confuse him to no end.

Men. Always thinking there has to be some greater purpose and that people cannot just write to talk. How you made it without us remains a mystery to me sometimes.

I worry about him, Lucilius. He has been hyper-focused on almost everything seemingly not here at home. He kept calculating and talking about wheat for almost three weeks straight: how much would it be, how many would it feed, how would it get here. It got so bad I finally had to say something – well to be honest, I cried. That finally seemed to get his attention in a way that my hints did not (I am not surprised by that – so many men I have known seem clueless to things that my girlfriends I would instantly pick up on. Then again, Seneca has commented on other things that completely passed me by. It all balances out I suppose.).

Seneca is worried about food. I am worried about food too, but my circle of worry is a lot smaller than his. Mine extends primarily to my daughter and son-in-law and my husband. The rest of the world is much less to me at this time.

I know. Seneca often rambles on about our obligations to the larger whole and about somehow saving a sliver of civilization. And don’t get me wrong – I admire that sort of devotion to something greater than one’s self; it’s one of the things I find so attractive about him. But there has to be a limit to altruism.

And that limit for me is a pretty small circle.

I worry this Winter will be worse than the last one – not only because we were still living off the end of being able to buy things but because there is something in my heart that tells me it will be. A cast to the sun, a smell on the wind. I can’t define it more than that, other than to tell you that my ability to tell when Winter is coming – and a bad Winter at that – has been spot on almost since we moved here.

I think I have managed to pull Seneca’s attention back here at last: his efforts in the garden and greenhouse have been focused and we are getting a small stock of food set aside. Protein is my biggest concern right now: the quail eggs are nice but small and not as reliable in Winter. We have made trial runs of sun-drying fish; it was okay but not great and we really could use more salt to make it better.

I need to find more somewhere.

And I worry about Pompeia Paulina and Young Xerxes as well – Xerxes has the same sort of “community mindset” that Seneca does but to a larger degree. Sooner or later he will have to get his focus settled where it needs to be – although I will leave that to my daughter as she is more than capable enough.

I don’t know if writing this down means some sort of psychic emanations flow from it to you; I certainly hope they do and that you can spare a thought for us, as I know we (and especially Seneca) do for you.

Your friend, Pompeia Paulina