Friday 3:12 pm

Santiago left this morning.  He politely tried not to wake me from my slumber, but I sensed the creeping footfalls and nearly leapt from bed, lest I should fail in my hostessly duties.  I quickly enrobed myself, thanking my parents mentally once again for the lovely silk wrap they bought on our Jewish Christmas in San Francisco's Chinatown (TM), and descended to give him a goodbye hug and try to offer him food for the road, which he declined.  

It was strange, (he is the second overnight house guest I have had since the new year began, and I only got home on January 6) but there was something deeply disquieting to me to have another human being in my house.  Not because I didn't want a visitor, but because there is a strange hush that settles over the house once you have decided to go to bed, and once conversation has ended, and each person closes their respective bedroom door, a whole other universe begins.  One is alone with oneself, but not so.  One can hear through the doors and hallways the breathing of another human being, and yet, the chill of winter, that seeps in under the cracks in the foundation, under the door, through the damask curtains... that chill is not mediated in any way by your company.  Sleeping universes divide us from speech, isolation settles in, and in this case, I do the school work that I have been studiously ignoring.

Today I will host a dinner.  I will dry roast tomatillos and chiles, make a salsa verde, fry up the tortilla strips which have been dessicating for several days now, and I will lovingly make chilaquiles for my friends and cohort, knowing that a few months I will be missing them, but not my lovely daughter who I am missing quite achingly.  Perhaps that is the strangeness in having house guests, ones with whom I can't snuggle into bed with.  I spent the holidays constantly accompanied, and for three entire weeks I had, at all times, at least one other human body (first I. and C. and then K.) curled under the blankets next to mine.  Now I am back to my solitary status, and I find myself needing, quite desperately to care for others, so much so that I am stumbling over myself to do favors, and to offer food and comfort.  This is, in essence, my effort to comfort myself.  I cannot escape my culture, it is true, and not so tragic as it is amusing.  

There is little but the mundane, my daily amusements, my plans for future travel and visits (Jenny calls to tell me she is coming to visit in three weeks!), my existential angst...  I would make such a good loner if it weren't for the sleeping alone part. Sigh.  Another year begins.