Time for Repairs
It’s raining in the Hill Country this morning. Later today we might get snow. It’s Sunday morning. I’d go to church if I could because it just feels like a day for that. It’s been a hard week. I really wanted to start going again right after my wife died but getting in a room full of people for an hour seemed contraindicated. So, I stayed home. The rituals are comforting, but I’m pretty sure it’s not the only way to the top. Maybe things will change after I get my vaccine shot tomorrow, providing of course the weather cooperates. More winter weather is coming later in the day and evening.
As I stood on the back porch this morning and watched a wet buck walk through the gray day, I thought back to the times when I would have been out in this weather hunting, waiting for that deer. Although it wouldn’t have happened in January because the season is over. Still, there were plenty of wet cold days spent outside, sometimes sitting in a blind, sometimes under a tree and sometimes in a blind by a rice paddy waiting for the ducks. I don’t know why the light for that pastime went out, but it did. Maybe once I knew I could gather my own food, I decided shopping for it was easier.
I assume that change is just one of the changes that happens to a person over the course of their life. You find love, lose love. Make friends, lose friends. Sleep all night, never sleep at all. Walk fast, walk slow. Have your hair turn gray, have it all fall out. Lose your looks if you had any to begin with. Have hope, be disappointed. Whatever happens, you never stop going. You just adapt to the new reality. Like now. No one around. Just me. And the cat. Solitude. And a nice view. All of which might be just what the doctor ordered to patch the holes in my heart, both old and new.