Ate breakfast on the porch this morning. The sky was dark blue and cloudless, a serene endless blue canvas. The sun was gleaming and waking up Mother Nature and her critters. Another beautiful day in the making with just a slight breeze to make porch sitting pleasant. The birds were slow to the feeders so it was a quiet start to the day. A lone wood thrush was patrolling the yard and running around dressed in his Sunday cinnamon colored frock with a black and white polka dot vest. His “ee-o-lay” call was a beautiful solo in the quiet yard symphony.

I actually had cantaloupe this morning on my breakfast plate but alack and alas it wasn’t delicious. Been missing my cantaloupe but not enough the make a grocery store run. Wally World hasn’t had cantaloupes for weeks but I finally got one Friday morning in my grocery pickup. Last grocery run I agreed to take a seedless watermelon to replace the out of stock cantaloupes but I could hardly pick it up or cut it up. Thought it was a personal size but that sucker was huge. I even had to ask Stew to get it in and out of the fridge for me.

Today in a weak moment I chunked my watermelon rind off the back deck hoping to appease Grandpaw raccoon into leaving my front porch alone. Last night I forgot to bring in the sack with the bird suets and bird cakes and the little masked thief stole the two birds cakes out of the sack. So sad! Thought maybe I didn’t buy them but there they were on my Wally World order when I checked. Those cakes cost $4 a piece so I don’t buy them often but my bird friends really love them. I know it was my fault for leaving them out there but I’m still mad at Grandpaw. Gonna have to buy me a pellet gun to ping him and scare him off.

When I’m on the porch thinking and listening to Mother Nature I leave the cell phone inside and my ipad in my room. I just let my mind wander and wait for memories and inspiration to strike. I enjoy the quiet time to contemplate my world. Today was so nice and quiet till a weed eater composed a loud concerto down the street. A motorcyclist was the soloist in the concerto as he revved his engine when he rode by. That music jolted me back to reality so I came in the house for a while and composed a few letters to my grandsons attending Boy Scout camp this week.

Saw this quote a few days ago that said, “The way we spend our days is the way we spend our lives,” — Annie Dillard.

Well, today I porch pondered the day away. Guess that means I’ve been pondering the days of my life away. Well, I’ve always been a scheduled person and retirement really changed that. My life is totally unscheduled now and I love it. When my children were little I kept them on a strict schedule and I tried to be consistent with times when we had meals. Schedules give order to our lives but one of the perks of retirement is ripping up those schedules. If Chief were here I’d still be scheduled but on my own I can stay up late, eat a bag of popcorn for lunch. I am content and receptive of my alone time. Some people are happy alone but with others it’s a struggle and a challenge to stay home and be alone. Nothing wrong with venturing out in the world everyday, I just enjoy staying home.

There is a difference to being alone and being lonely. If you are alone you are physically by yourself. Lonely is an emotional feeling of being left out and disconnected. If you’re lonely you crave the company of others. Course you can be lonely in a crowd, too. “This voyage of ours is lonely — the more so if we find a companion, only to suffer the bitterest loss. In truth we are alone,” ― Jeanette Winterson.

I think the loneliness I’ve experienced as a widow is a lonely kind of sadness. It’s like having a puzzle with a missing piece. You look and look for something to fill that gap but there is nothing you can find to plug that lonely hole. Without a partner we widows are facing the world alone, we’ve lost the security of our spouse, and we are left to make all our life decisions on our own. When it’s time to lay our heads down at night the loneliness drapes over us and the darkness moves so slowly till the sun of a new day shines.

“People think that I have survived your leaving. What they don’t understand is that I have to relearn how to survive each day, because each day you are still gone,” — Author Unknown