Not so cold this morning — 5°, light wind — and although I was generally limber, I felt some resistance from the lifter-upper muscles in my thighs. The morning run was 10:05.
I had some tidying up to do at the college, sorting out leftover marking and so on; that, and some reading, took up the morning. Over lunch, Margaret and I listened to a powerful lecture by Syl Ko on ‘Who is “the human” and who is “the animal”?’, which Margaret is using in a series of tutorials she’s teaching. Then she went on to teach the tutorial (online, of course) while I went back to reading Newman.
The college community has now been indirectly touched by the plague, as the chef’s father has died of COVID-19. That resonates with me especially since this is the twelfth anniversary of my own father’s death. That took a COVID day, already replete with its own minor-key poignancy, and boosted the intensity significantly. In the twelve years since Don died, we’ve become grandparents, we’ve moved to the UK, and we stand today under the threat of a possibly fatal illness. Even if COVID-19 weren’t a proximate danger, it reminds me that my father lived just nine years beyond the birthday I’ll celebrate in September. ‘Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.’ I remember, believe me.
Pizza for dinner, Spooks for diversion. And so to bed.