Is it better to clean the gutters while Manyu is gone so I am not constantly reminded to be careful, or should I do it while she is home so there is someone to call 911 if I fall off the ladder? It’s a good question, but it’s also a moot one. This year about half of the leaves were still clinging to their branches when Manyu left for her annual trip to Taiwan and Thailand. A week from now, when I do get around to scooping leaves out of gutters, I will be the one telling myself to be careful and I’ll be the one with a phone in my pocket.
Of course, the big question about Manyu’s trips to see family has never been about leaves in the gutters. It is about how best to handle solitude and loneliness. This year Manyu will be gone for four months. This is longer than most years, but not by a lot. If not for a blind, deaf, and frequently confused old dog, I’d join her midway through her trip, but right now neither Manyu nor I want to burden anyone else with the constant care of Jack. I’ll stay home to wash the sleep from his eyes, carry him up and down the two steps into our house, and clean up the occasional accident.
I have yet to tell my friends about Manyu’s departure. The day will come when I welcome their companionship, but for now I want to be alone. The one exception is that I’ve told my card playing friends. We have an unspoken rule that a house without a spouse becomes the site for the next card game.
The trick to maximizing solitude and minimizing loneliness is to make good use of the time after dark. This I learned from solo trips into the backcountry. I came to realize that hiking by myself during the day is fantastic, and sitting alone in camp at night is lonely. Home alone is not much different. My daily routine of writing, exercise, and walking Jack takes up a better part of the daylight hours, so it is the evenings when I must keep loneliness at bay. Before marriage, I did this by spending evenings in bars and going to movies by myself. Those pursuits no longer interest me. Now I turn to crime novels, limited tv (no binging), phone calls, guitar playing, and occasional face-to-face socialization.
I have also added an evening writing session to my usual routine of writing only in the morning. The prose is lousy, but I do jot down a good sentence or two that might have otherwise been lost.
Manyu has been gone one week, so I am entering the glory days of my time alone.* The initial shock of her absence has passed, and any sense that she should be home by now is still a ways off. I am sitting at my writing table this morning and thinking, “Ahhh! I have the whole day to myself.”
* I had originally written “…so I am entering the halcyon days of my time alone,” but then realized that halcyon days usually refers to childhood. What are the halcyon days of an old man called?
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