A small room above a bay window. A single bed, a table and chair, and a sink. I could manage something larger, with more conveniences, but I could never match the view.

This morning's rain has ignited the daphne below. If I can't wake to sunshine, the next best thing is a fresh smelling room.

Before heading out I will visit the daphne, crouch down before it and look for its scent in its hard pink flowers. When I return I will Google it, see what its needs are. The day after that I will feed it.

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There are now enough versions of what happened in Abbottabad on Sunday to have achieved the kind of confusion the United States sought when they crafted the "Killing of bin Laden" narrative. What better way to manage a situation than to diffuse it through multiple scenerios, with everyone going down their own road, with new and even more distracting scenerios emerging.

Here is something I read in today's Globe and Mail, an interview with a local man who denied western reports that bin Laden's compound was in an affluent part of the city:

"'This is not a posh area. We call it a middling area,' another property dealer, Muhammad Anwar, said.

Asked about the American estimate, he scoffed: 'Maybe that's the assessment from a satellite. But here on the ground, that's the price.'"

The question of whether or not to show the "death photos" of Osama bin Laden continues despite recent statements by the President of the United States, who said in an interview (to be broadcast by CBS this weekend) that "[i]t is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence."

Do I need to see these photos? No more than I needed to see video of an American "contractor's"' beheading, or what U.S. soldiers got up to at Abu Ghraib. Will seeing these photos incite me to "additional violence"? I can't be sure -- until I see them. But not likely, no. Can we be sure that these photos were not staged? No more than we can be sure that parts of bin Laden's brain were "photoshopped" out.

But these "death photos" -- are they the definitive bin Laden "death photos"? What about the photo released three days ago of the U.S. President, Vice-President, Secretary of State, etc. in their "situation room," watching what was likely a 'live' POV feed from the helmet of the first Navy Seal to reach "The Target" -- his shot between the eyes? Nothing we will ever see of a dead bin Laden will match what is going on in this photo.

Not once during the nine-and-a-half years the United States was looking for Osama bin Laden did I imagine his capture. Am I surprised he was found in a house and not a cave? No, I always felt he was in or around Islamabad. Am I surprised that it was a cell phone call that gave him away? No, though it is worth noting that his outsized hideout had neither a land line nor an internet hook-up. Am I surprised that it took this long to find him? No, like Orwell I thought his absence served a purpose, both as a motivation and a justification for U.S. domestic and foreign policy. Am I surprised that he was buried at sea? Despite the shrine that his gravesite would have invariably become, yes, I find this strange, especially for someone who was born and raised in a desert. Am I surprised by the reaction to his death? No, there are many in the U.S. capable of the kind of celebration only an execution can inspire. Do I share this response? My first response to any death is to consider what it is to be absent.

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Robins were everywhere when I was a kid, but never more than two at a time.

Every spring I would find a piece of robin's egg, which is the most beautiful blue there is.

Robins with their rusty breasts, and in the park across the street, the grass black with starlings.