Here in the country, my moods are more settled than they ever were in the city; it seems at first that there are fewer stimuli to jog or tug at them, but really it is that they are propelled differently. Energy functions differently among the trees. In the city, nothing is quite settled, ever. And other people’s suffering, other people’s deaths, become unbearable. When I read the literature on AIDS or walk the streets, I start to lose it; grief is everywhere. In the country, flesh is grass, and the grasses are settling into autumn. My bed is in a bay of five large, mullioned windows, and the million leaves of the nearby trees are struggling to dance. Of course, at this time of year, they and I are all dying together. I hear the countryside silence - it’s something I can permit here - as focused on death. Getting into that mood is like going to church or spending the day in the wind, with the steep views and the hawks, and vultures, hovering.