JANUARY 3, SATURDAY

Suddenly it occured to me that day after tomorrow I would be flying for three weeks from Asheville to Leon, Mexico, and from there taking the shuttle to San Miguel de Allende. I had, of course, known this for months and had paid for my room in advance and paid $700 for an air ticket, which seem exorbitant since Leon was half the distance of Europe where tickets for the spring are now about $500 on Going.com. But psychologically I wasn’t prepared and for a while today I panicked, wondering what might go wrong with my 88 year old body or other dangers unknown. But really, it was purely psycholgical. Maybe as I get older and more cautious, sudden radical shifts in cultural norms—language, food, customs—leaping into the unknown, seem harder. All day I had a sense of foreboding. I went through the mechanics of everyday life but without enthusiasm, waiting for the axe to fall.