What do you think our future will look like?  Is the water level rising, will cities disappear?  Will we have a government this week?  Are my friends in India going to be safe?  Will the terrible situation in India be helped by the intervention of the rest of the world or will the rest of the world be ruined by the plague in India?  

I had coffee today with an old friend I hadn’t seen all year.  All we talked about was household management in the year that has passed – cleaning, cooking, tv – and how we have aged.  And then we walked through the strip mall, for the first time uninterested in buying something new to wear.  And it suddenly it occurred to me that we may be on the verge of a renewed youth, a new age, with pared-down needs, a more clear view of what is important and what isn’t.