Woke up today feeling something you could call a cool draft in our house, imagine that. I had about a half hour to relish it, naïvely, deludedly, thinking the times are a-changing, before 8:30 descended on West Africa and with it the familiar old dry, heavy heat - merely trapped in the morning rush hour drag - arrived promptly, all ruffled and overcompensating, not a minute too soon. Everyday must be one closer to cooling off, right? Or have I been living in New England too long!

But nonetheless, things feel like they’re changing. You can usually trust it when you feel it, in the breeze, in your bones … (wherever you so feel change.) This weekend marks the end of Ramadan. Feels like a ball rolling downhill, but instead of gaining momentum, it’s gotten drowsy under the weight of inertia. It’s so straining, it feels like its its got to come to an end or else. I find myself thinking about religion constantly here, way more than the last time I was here, way more than ever. There seem to be a lot of questions I can’t seem to get off my mind, mostly about the roots of religions, our evolutionary inclination to spirituality (and why it's quite maladaptive to our venerable old species)(but all of this isn't about spirituality per se), about social conformity, about long outdated approaches to understanding the world and beyond, about incompatibility … about other things I don’t want to discuss here for fear of stepping on toes; I’ve even stepped on my own toes this time. What I used to find very beautiful and worthy about the world religions has been trumped recently by a negativity I can't seem to shake off.