by Dr. David Fialkoff, Editor / Publisher

My apartment is like I left it when I went off to New Orleans four weeks ago. With the rain (I hear that there's been a lot) and the windows all closed there is no noticeable dust, but the cleaning lady comes in a couple of days.

The plants are all out on the stair landing where I left them to be watered by my neighbor who lives across the street. (I'm not quite ready to give her a key to the apartment.) I'll leave them there until the cleaning lady comes, giving her the chance to clean deeply into the corners, unobstructed.

Without the plants this place, even with all the art on the walls, is somewhat sterile. The interior: ceiling, walls and floor are all pure white. It feels like a gallery with me on exhibit... and in some ways it is.

My trip to New Orleans evoked a favorite theme of mine, borrowed from Socrates, namely how little we know for certain. I asked myself, how sure can we be of anything when time itself is a mystery?

After all, under normal circumstances, subjectively time is wildly inconsistent; sometimes moving fast, sometimes crawling along. Then, scientifically, creating further uncertainty, physicists insist that all moments: past, present and future exist at once together, perpetually, in a very impersonal immortality.

New Orleans and San Miguel share a time zone, but are still an hour off. Up there my messages on my WhatsApp were timestamped an hour earlier than the local hour. Each time a message arrived it was as if there were an hour delay in communications. The time on my phone, however, was correct... for New Orleans. But the time on my laptop and phone disagreed. I've never been much for clocks so I wasn't too bothered by the ambiguity.

But that disorientation was compounded when my return flight from Houston to Léon was an hour late. With all of that, even now, I, who back in high school got A's in calculus after skipping a year of math, have trouble calculating how long my travel was yesterday. To be honest, I haven't tried very hard, largely due to the fact that time has taught me that there are different ways of counting.

However long it was, or wasn't, after a shuttle ride from the airport I got home yesterday at 11pm local time. Unsure of every chronometer I Googled "Time in San Miguel de Allende." Then I checked my messages to discover that there was one from my daughter sent at 10pm (my time?). She wrote, "I thought you'd be home by now. I hope everything is ok." In hindsight, I should have messaged her using the airport Wi-Fi -- I don't have minutes on my phone – but it was all such a whirl, and our plan was for me to message her when I got home.

That done – she was asleep at midnight(?) her time, I set to work publishing my Sunday newsletter and magazine. The show must go on, whether or not I've spent ten hours (could it have been that many?) traveling Saturday afternoon and evening.

Fortunately, I had pre-assembled (in New Orleans and en route) the large pieces of my Sunday publishing project each containing a small myriad of smaller pieces, including photos, links, articles, etc. However, there are always last-minute adjustments, details large and small that aren't right or, at least, can be improved. I'm getting better. After seven decades, I am learning to live with my imperfections, But (and this is a note to the wise; you know who you are) if you are in the business of publishing and you are not obsessed with getting it right, then you should find another business.

Those last-minute revisions didn't bother me, even as the midnight hour approached. I was grateful, happy, ecstatic even, for the simple fact that I could work from the comfortable efficiency of my home (which seemed a little small after a month at my daughter's). That is, that the electricity was on and that the internet was functioning. You see, not infrequently, out here on the periphery of town we have blackouts. The last thing I wanted to do on arriving home after traveling (for ten hours?) was to go out at night looking for an internet connection, especially not so late at night.

As it was, it all went smoothly; after 14 years of online publishing, I'm getting good at this. In less than an hour the magazine's table of contents and the slideshow there were updated and the newsletter was finished and scheduled to be sent. I then dined on one of the two delicious burritos my daughter had packed for me (a generous portion of her divine Thai tempeh curry having kept me going during the flights), and, at whatever hour it was, went to bed.

Even given that my daughter's is a home away from home, I have to admit that it was nice to sleep in my own bed. Even the cuetes (aerial bombs) going off to mark the end of Saint Michael's festivities were a welcome sign of home, only partially waking me up.

Things are pretty quiet out here on the northern edge of town, even more so on Sunday mornings, even more so when we have a power outage, as we do this Sunday morning. That's fine with me. It's good to be quiet, to collect one's thoughts before the large and small urgencies of the day impose themselves; those quotidian demands that eclipse the true need to know (remembering Socrates) whatever it is we can know of ourself.

Einstein counseled, "The past, present and future are only illusions, even if stubborn ones." But even if the physicists are correct, that all time exists forever, it is of little comfort to those of us who measure the present minute by minute. Time is funny. Even before I started out on this trip to visit my daughter, I imagined being back, this moment afterward. And now I am in it. I miss her already.

These days I can cry at the drop of a hat. I'm teary at this moment (whether this moment is eternal or not). But just now, the universe conspires to save me (at least for a while) from such sentimentality, as at this very instant (whether this instant is immortal or not) the power returns, and someone down the block shouts "Regresó la luz," the electricity ["light"] is back.

In another moment my modem will complete its dance, and my internet will spring to life. Then I'll back up this article, look at my messages and check to see that today's newsletter went out as it was supposed to at 3:30am. Then, I'll bicycle down to the local market to buy some fruit and veggies, because, except for my daughter's second burrito (and a few condiments), the refrigerator is bare.

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Dr. David Fialkoff presents Lokkal, public internet, building community, strengthening the local economy. If you can, please do contribute content, or your hard-earned cash, to support Lokkal, SMA's Voice. Use the orange, Paypal donate button below. Thank you.

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