A month and a fortnight, while winter arrived in the northern city. Not an easy slog, but buoyed along by graces visible and in, it has been possible. Of course, winter has a duration as well as an arrival, but sufficient is, and ever shall be, the day.
Non-project reading shifting to neo-Kantian ways -- I took out Cassirer's Kant book to tide me over when the libraries closed over Christmas, and now working through some of his other stuff. The project work continues apace.
When you find yourself outside the charm of a certain society, for some reason, the intuitive response is to lessen the powers of observation and propensity for contact; as you're no longer serving the purposes of these social forms, the logic that kept you engaged with those social forms now dictates that you slacken your energies so as not to interfere with things. But there are other sources of energy. In addition to the various brands of instant coffee dissolved in the water bottle. (The Indian uses his plants, the wartime German his chemical factories, and I use my everyday consumer goods. The point is to wisely use the things around you.)
In grad school, I picked up a useful phrase from a musician travelling through the theatre where I was training: "Take it easy, but take it."
After a few days of intense trial, when the weather warms and the mist rises from the ground, the animal nature relaxes into the small springtime, but the human spirit, perceiving this, correctly redoubles his discipline.
Take it easy, but take it.