My REALITY THIS WINTER CONSISTS OF MANY THINGS. EVEN this: I wake from a doze. My flight is approaching a city. The sun vanishes behind tall mountains. Far below, lights go on in thousands of windows and street advertisements. For a moment I don’t remember where I am going. Cities resemble each other as much as the planes that take me to them. It is disquieting that one’s destination should be so unimportant. The same women and men will be standing by the same exits and will exclaim the same words of welcome when they see me. People with flowers and kindness, all in a hurry to pack me into a car and drive me-to some luxury hotel, where they can abandon me and go home to their own lives. A suite with sitting room and bedroom, deep armchairs upholstered in silk, big windows looking out onto palms and a swimming pool.

Champagne on ice with the compliments of the management. Flowers and baskets of fruit. Hall porters bowing themselves in and out with my luggage and my letters and my telephone messages. Smiles and politeness and the unreality that surrounds it all.

While I smile enthusiastically and thank them.