Extempore

And finally, the wanderings of this boy in divers places, and his servile ministeries, together with the expiatory sacrifices and ceremonies about Tempe, move suspicion that there should be represented thereby some notorious outrage, and audacious fact perpetrated there in old time.

So remarks Plutarch, by way of Philemon Holland, in one of his treatises on the Delphic Oracle. And indeed, my wanderings in divers places, and my servile ministeries at the library, closeted in the cold in the hold under the ground, peering at all those pleonastic rows of reasonings—and the many other sacrifices and ceremonies I have undertaken in this arid sprawl named Tempe, Arizona—are now at an end. Has there been any notorious outrage? Any perpetration? A few, possibly. In old time.

We board our flight home on Tuesday, and will to the woods malls no more. One by one, all of our lamps have been given away. Books have been judiciously trashed, clothes and cookware, oversized martini-glasses with gold highlights, velvet hats once fashionable for a brief flicker in the mid-90s, and velvet gloves too, pseudo-oriental glass candybottles, anything and everything with a butterfly design, all my wife's, ruthlessly disseminated. And so, stripped down to a few boxes and four shouldersworth of baggage, we depart.

*

We will be in limbo for fifteen days, enjoying suburban Virginia. There will be things here for you to read during that time—things of all varieties—and with any luck, you'll like them better than my recent posts. I've been collecting material for a lengthy meditation on one of my favourite books, a book you may regret never having heard of, soon enough.

But not until June, back in the Old Wen, shall I be able, finally, to relax my lungs. I hope to write more about the city I love, and moreover to live as I write—with the contentedness, and the wholeness, that comes with being home.