Our weekend retreat has been slightly interrupted by the auto body shop, which needs a few more hours to finish fixing my car. We’ll leave in the early afternoon.

We’ve been going to this Vermont Inn for some years now, but this is the first time I ever called to ask if there was a gym on the property; I was amazed to learn that there was.

It never occurred to me to ask before, but these days, I don’t go anywhere without seeing if there is a gym.

I had a good shoulder and arm workout at my gym this morning, and everything hurts. I’ll keep this work going over the weekend, Monday; there are no longer any restrictions on my foot.

Vacations are difficult for us. We both find it hard to leave the farm in the winter; there is just so much animal and property care.

We need to make sure there is warm water, that the paths are cleared, the Pole Barn dry and windproof, the roofs are scraped, the garbage hauled out, the dogs are cared for, the barn cats the basement, the stoves dry, and clean.

Not to mention our hungry blogs.

We have a wonderful person to watch the farm, but winter farm sitting is a complicated thing Vacations are expensive too now, and there are other things we prefer to do with our money.

It’s off, but we love the farm so much we usually hate to leave it.

But 2020 was a draining year for us and many others, who had it worse than we did. The politics were ugly and relentless, I had my three different surgeries, and the pandemic changed our world radically.

I could help the Bishop Maginn refugees and the Mansion residents, but I couldn’t see them or visit them.

I had to be very careful about where I went and who I saw. To me, the virus is no hoax; the mask is no constitutional violation. Next week I get my second vaccine, and I’ll be back at it.

I remembered my cardiologist telling me early that if I caught the virus, I was most likely a dead man.

This had the desired effect. I always fight the idea that writing is work. I love writing, and I never tire of it. But it 1s work, and I do a lot of it.

After I get the vaccine, I’ll meet my daughter and my granddaughter at the Bronx Zoo, where we last saw one another. That will be special, it’s been a year.

Writing about politics was a surprise for me; I thought I was free of all that nastiness, but I liked doing it; it was good for me and the blog. It is always good to have one’s parameters challenged and stretched.

I always loved being a political writer, and my love of politics returned last year, even though my love of politicians did not.

So my head is tired, and I also know that my body needs more rest and care than I am used to giving it. I will go to the inn’s gym once a day; I made a promise to my very patient heart.

I see the vacation as cleansing, a re-charging of batteries, a refreshing of perspectives. Maria and I are both busy almost all of the time and these days will give us a chance to be together. That is never tiring either.

A time to take a deep breath, experience quiet, abandon devices, avoid any shred of news.

I’ve added a new book to my reading list for the weekend, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara And the Sun. I peeked at a few pages last night; I smell a potential masterpiece.

That makes four books I’m bringing along. Hmmm….Our room has a giant old bathtub, and it fits two easily. We sit covered in bubbles while Maria reads short stories to me.

I’m putting off my third Amish Bookman run until Sunday, it’s raining too hard.

So this time, we really are going to get going. We’ll be back Sunday morning. I am grateful for all of the good people who read my work and make it possible for me to be a writer and a human being searching for his humanity.

We are a community, after all, one that really worked in spite of me.