January 14. Frightened by the word “Earth”.

January 13. Tonight to Sweden. We are both flying, with passports from different countries. Entry rules unclear. Printed out the test results to be on the safe side.

We are already on the plane when a message from my neurologist comes in. A message that I am only allowed to retrieve in North America. Everything looks stable on the MRI, she writes with an exclamation mark. No changes.

January 12. Court proceedings getting into the realm of Michael Kohlhaas.

January 11. Department of Motor Vehicles. As long as everything fits together, the process is remarkably efficient. You’re met, given a waiting number, moved from counter to counter in a matter of minutes, where documents are reviewed, a photo is taken, and a signature is made in a pink rectangle.

But Albany doesn’t know about the medical assessment my neurologist faxed and mailed there. I’ve never had an ID in New York State, and that’s why the assessment couldn’t be matched, filed, or processed. At least that is the reasoning, because there is nothing in the database.

The clerk does not yet know all the functions in the computer. A resolute head of department comes, looks over her shoulder and gives instructions. I ask a question. “Well, I’ll explain it again now, but I won’t explain it three times and I won’t explain it four times.”

I can get an ID card without a driver’s license first. With that, Albany should be able to assign and process the medical assessment. For the ID card, I’m told to get back in line at the counter where my photo was taken. I stand there for a while until the woman, whose job it is to make sure the counters are evenly filled, sees me and takes me to another counter. The clerk there knows nothing of my situation and starts everything over again. The head of department sees it and suspects that I am trying to cheat my way through. She gets angry.

After further explanations, I get my temporary ID. Now I have to call Albany.

January 10. Harsh wave shadows. Remnants of snow. Trying to read the wind in the bare trees.

January 9. Spent large parts of the day sleeping. Train back to Manhattan in the evening. I’m afraid I might be “contentedly tinkering a little with some stuff”.

January 8. Emptied a storage unit in Queens with J and her brother and took the stuff to Newburgh in a U-Haul truck. J runs the operation, and one better not make a fool of oneself. When I was twenty or thirty, that wouldn’t have worked. I would have had to prove myself or despair of not being able to. Meanwhile, pure serenity. She can do a lot of things better than I can, including many decidedly manly things. I know what I need and what I want. I almost envy myself for that.

January 7, Newburgh. Swept snow from car, been to Aldi, played etudes. Left hand wonders.

January 6. MRI. Lying in the tube, I marvel at the contrast of my million-year-old, complicated body, which we barely understand, and the rumbling, whining, growling machine we’ve built to at least peek inside it. The contrast agent no longer needs to be catheterized from a femoral artery all the way up to the head; it’s just quickly injected into the arm, and that’s enough. It’s everywhere within seconds.

January 5. Found another app for reading music. It generates random notes to recognize and play back. In the running stream of notes, as my hand moves blindly left and right, fingers spreading and closing, I feel like a polymerase molecule transcribing a DNA strand.