Ate breakfast on the porch this morning, perched in the swing. The sky was dark blue and cloudless, a serene endless blue canvas. The sun was bright and waking up Mother Nature. Another beautiful day in the making with just a slight breeze to make the wind chimes sing softly and the porch sitting pleasant. The birds were slow to the feeders so it was a quiet start to the day.

When I’m on the porch thinking and listening to Mother Nature, I just let my mind wander and wait for memories and inspiration to strike. I enjoy the quiet time to contemplate my world. As I look over my garden I’m missing my Chief. He loved digging in God’s earth, planting vegetables and watching them grow. He was always thrilled with the landscape when spring was sprouting across his little slice of heaven on earth. We’d spend many happy winter nights sitting in front of the fireplace pursuing seed catalogs and planning our gardens. I’d have a kitchen garden in the back yard and he’d have small garden plots all over the woods around our house.

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. I’ve always been a scheduled person and retirement really messed that up. My life is totally unscheduled now and I’ve learned to 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.

“The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.” — Mother Teresa

“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. There is a difference to being alone and being lonely. I love this verse of scripture from Psalm 34, “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” If you are alone you are physically by yourself. Lonely is an emotional feeling of being left out and disconnected. If you’re lonesome you crave the company of others. Course you can be lonely in a crowd, too.

Schedules give order to our lives but one of the perks of retirement is ripping up those schedules. If Chief were here we’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.

The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I think the loneliness I’ve experienced as a widow is a quiet 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 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 its time to lay our heads down at night the loneliness drapes over us and the darkness moves slowly till the sun of a new days 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.” — Davina Pinkbooi