ALONE BUT NOT LONELY

 

 

I recently re-read a reflection [I'll call it a poem] that a friend sent to me a number of years ago.  He has stood strong against a variety of challenges, including the way-too-early loss of his wife to cancer.  Some of you may find the poem dark, but I find it thought-provoking, and in it, many things  to which I can relate.  My suggestion is to read it aloud, and then let me know what you think.

I walk every morning at 3:30 am out my back door, through the pastures over the fence and down Bar X road. It heads straight north. I walk that stretch (4.4 miles) 7 days a week at the same time every morning. It teaches me brutal wind and fierce cold and sometimes driving snow and ice and, how these are places where the hearts of men sometimes go.

It reminds me how very alone I am.

Alone but not lonely.

A choice I have made and a price I pay when I am misunderstood.

These days seem to stretch into an eternity of highway.
I love the highway just as I love the forest. It never gives up.
It humbles my arrogance.

This thing at work, it is so far away from me when I am home with my family, or when I'm cutting wood or walking on Bar X.

Why so many feel obligated to fear the wanderer I think I know.
They fear the freedom of being alone and what they perceive it must do to your fortress of the soul.

As Lent falls on this dark night I feel alone but not abandoned.
I feel love of life all the more when things get bad.

I will survive.

We (my little family without a wife or mother)...will survive.
That's all that matters

It's a comfort to know there is a rationality to emotion.

John Lennon said it with clarity:

"Love is all you need"