It’s alarming how much time I can spend in my head. Driving to Intermarche, I’m vaguely aware that the vineyards have been harvested, I notice that the car behind is drawing closer and will probably try to overtake me, but mostly I’m replaying a conversation from a couple of hours ago. I run the tape a few times, pick out certain words, come up with a response I wish I’d made, decide what I’m going to do about it, weigh the pros and cons of doing nothing, and on and on.
Mornings, eyes hardly open, I reach for my phone. E-mails first, I skim through them until one merits a second look and, possibly, depending on the content, takes up residence in my brain for a few hours. The news can do that too. Climate change, the rightwing press, politics. Hours pass, my head full of this and that. As I walk through my small French village, I’m mentally back in the United States imagining the hell if a convicted former president gets back into office.