It’s Sunday. I used to take the day off. Pause my literary output. I guess I thought it would keep me fresh. But an odd thing happened. The word spigot, once turned on, likes to stay that way. So, here I am on a gray winter’s morning sitting at my screen, coffee cup to the left, and the cat at my feet or in my lap or just walking around meowing, because she’s been out all night and needs a little love before her daytime slumbers. Which I totally get. Who doesn’t need a little love? All of us I suspect. Some more than others.

In fact, I was thinking along those lines yesterday. I believe it had something to do with the pandemic, which is nearly a year old and has forced me into a socially distanced isolation. Coupled with the loss of my wife, who mentally departed a while back, but physically left last August, I found myself alone last year and this, not normally a place people like to be. But the thought occurred, as I was preparing for bed, that I’d had a good day. I wrote, knocked about the house, did a little work, read, listened to music, and felt satisfied. I was alone, but not lonely. It’s an important distinction. I was learning to live in my mind and make do.

Of course, I miss the companionship of my wife, intensely at times, but I’m not sure that sort of companionship is the norm, and it might be a fool’s errand to think it is. I suspect in the dynamics of personal relationships those with enough energy to heat fuse two souls, through good times and bad, are probably pretty rare and way more complex than I imagine. And maybe that’s the secret to my being alone now but not lonely. Before, when I was alone it was just me; now it’s me and the memory of what we had. There’s a sense of completeness. It’s in the pictures, and the children, and the grandchildren. It’s the life we lived, with a big emphasis on the “we”. Sure. I would have liked more. But I’m guessing the road to peace is paved with gratitude for what was received.