I’m sure the Normandy French are quite different, for instance, in their manners and in their prejudices, from, say, the Parisian French. And even among Parisians I’d be surprised if there are none at all who, against stereotype, might be patient with an Anglo-speaking person who is attempting to communicate with them in French.

Though I suppose such a custom shouldn’t be generalized according to nation, anyway, but is better to observe on a case by case basis.

Though I suppose Americans are more known for this beneficence and encouragement than are the French. Meaning, it is not necessarily a universal or even a reciprocal truth.

Not that it’s unusual for a diner to inquire about the preparation of an item such as eggs, but that this young man’s pattern of speech had that oddly formal quality that is characteristic of a non-native speaker who is visiting a country and is making himself vulnerable, or anyway noticeable, by placing himself in situations where he must converse with a local. And so will often elicit, in that person with whom he is conversing, a beneficence or kindness that the person finds easy to produce, for the sake of encouragement.

Near me was a young couple who I recognized were speaking to each other in French, and who in fact looked to me somehow French, once I realized that is what they were. When the waitress stopped at their table, to take their order, I paid attention to how they interacted with her. The young man wanted to know how his eggs could be prepared, and the waitress described the options for him in a pleasant and unhurried way, as if she too had recognized that he and the girl were French, or anyway were foreign, and wanted to exhibit a special patience with them.

I happened to go there by myself, rather than with A., so I sat in a booth alone and looked at my phone while I ate, instead of talking to another person.

Today I ate breakfast at Court Square Diner, which is down the street from the building where A. and I live.

Though my life is so easy, compared to that of many others, that even I can hear how ridiculous that statement sounds, coming from me.

Not that I’d say I care about being catered to. Perhaps a better way of putting it is that in this city, once you reach a certain age, a middle class existence becomes exhausting.

Though I suppose there is, as well, in A.’s and my decision to move, a financial or economic reality that’s anything but vague. New York City is expensive, as everyone knows. And really only caters to the young, and to the very rich.

Meaning, I suppose, that some decisions can’t be measured by the conventional terms of ‘wrong’ and ‘right’, because such decisions don’t abide in the realm of morality that those terms inhabit, or were made to elucidate. They will always be attached instead to a kind of arbitrariness of spirit, or vague personal instinct, which wins out over some opposing, but equally vague, instinct or spirit, though both sides of the dilemma, such as it is, might present themselves through all manner of apparently ‘good’ reasons, or rationale.

It occurred to me while I was down there, on the pier, looking across the river toward the city, that this would be one of the last times I’d be able to do so, as A. and I are planning to move out of our apartment and to leave for Wyoming in about a month. And I felt somewhat nostalgic, naturally. Though I did not permit myself to become so nostalgic that I’d begin to regret A.’s and my decision. Which I think is the right one. Or, anyway, not the wrong one. Insofar as there can be a wrong one and a right one, in a situation such as ours.

This morning I lifted some weights in the exercise room on the second floor of the building where A. and I live, then went outside and jogged down to a pier on the waterfront of the East River, and did some calisthenics before jogging back.

After the Mass that was offered for Pope Francis, I prayed a Rosary for him in an alcove devoted to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Then I left the church and wandered down Lexington Ave toward the subway station at 59th Street.

Though there have been occasions also, I suppose, when, even though I’ve been here, in the city, I’ve failed to attend Mass at that church, or any church, as regularly as I ought to have, or anyway could have.

I say “more or less” because there have been times in the past year or so when I’ve been away from New York for weeks at a time, and therefore couldn’t have visited the church, even if I’d wanted to.

The church in question was St. Vincent Ferrer, on the corner of 65th and Lexington, on the Upper East Side, in case you are wondering. I’ve been going there more or less regularly for the last five years.

Meaning, for the repose of his soul as it passes from the temporal to the eternal.

I said a prayer for him after I got of bed. Later in the morning I rode the train to a church over in Manhattan, where the intention of the Mass for which I was present was offered in his name.

Which is to say it was one of the first facts I became aware of yesterday; it was one of the first items of information to enter my consciousness, at least that I remember.