As I look out at the bleached colours around my back yard, the pool full of snow, branches on the trees heavy with ice, glazed as though dipped in glass - there�s a mirror shine on the surface of the snow � I think of the state I�m in.

I�m out of work, trying to score the odd contract. I�m out of friends. They�re all gone or going � some, I�m not sure why. My place in the city is being sold out from under me. And I spend most of my time alone, not seeming to be able to connect with anyone. I�m trying to stay active. I�m involved with a lot of activity but not with people. It�s not just my shyness, surely.

I�m thinking about winter, this interminable winter. I�m thinking how my country has become winter, shutting itself away from everyone else, shunning attention. Mon pays, c�est l�hiver.

Then I think of Cali, shut away in its own way but warm and friendly and open, even with the turmoil down there, open and alive. I think of my friends there and how I�d love to be with them again. I want to bathe in that warmth � of people and climate. I want to sit under the palm tree by the pool at our hotel again. That hotel that�s built like a small Mediterranean town with it�s hallways and stairways and atriums.

And I think of Blu. I think that there�s something terribly wrong and I don�t know what it is and, whatever it is, I want to take it away from her. But then, I have to let her go too, just like the others, because like winter, it�s the end of things.

Maybe I need to start over�maybe in spring�

Arc