We spent yesterday morning at the Morgan Library. I was excited to see the Holbein show, but what ended up jumping me was the Woody Guthrie show upstairs.

This is Woody's fiddle, which he took with him to France when he was serving in World War II.  On the lower left you can read where he carved the words "This machine killed 10 fascists."

The library also had a gorgeous broadside of a Ray Lichtenstein print alongside an Allen Ginsburg poem; manuscripts of Shelley and Dickinson and Schubert and Gwendolyn Brooks; a Gutenberg Bible . . . so many records of humanity in language.

After the museum we wandered through the Central Park Zoo, finally managed to find something to eat in a strange neighborhood that seemed to have no sandwiches, and headed back to Brooklyn, where by 9 p.m. I had to bow out of the social whirl and go back to the apartment and climb into bed. I'd been overcome by days of walking for miles, of getting up early and staying up late, of rarely being alone.

Now, at 7 a.m., after a long deep night of sleep, I am reconnoitering with myself. In a little while I'll get up and make some coffee, take a shower, read a little; later in the morning I'll step back into the whirl, but a quieter version . . . a long walk up to the botanical gardens, a stroll through decorated spring. Otherwise, I have no particular plans for the day. Maybe bookstores, maybe thrift stores. Something local. I've done all of the Manhattan I need to do on this visit.