Sometimes I wonder…

Especially in the evenings, it is quiet here. At sunset, things shut down, or at least feel shut down. Lanai City is not a tourist city. It is a city where people work and raise their families, many for generations. And although there is a lot of barbecuing going on on any given day, they usually do it very quietly.

Especially in the evenings, it is very quiet and sometimes I wonder why I am here, by myself so that I can eat and watch TV by myself while my kids and friends and a whole other life is somewhere else. I could at least be reading a book, right? That would seem more poetic or spiritually and intellectually enriching or worthwhile. But for now, there’s a lot of going through the motions of living, especially in the evenings.

The days are fairly easy to fill. I usually try to exercise in the morning or get some admin done before work. It is very dangerous to look at your phone first thing because there can be a lot of messages from people who’ve already been up for 5 or 6 hours and that will sidetrack you enough to eat up your whole morning. Work consumes a lot of time. Usually, I go in at 10:30, which means that I get off at 7:30, which means I’m home between then and 8 if I’m walking. Which leads us back to …

Especially in the evenings, it is quiet here.

But it could be quiet in San Antonio, too, or almost anyplace. Last year was a prime example of things going quiet, of changes and shifts in lifestyle and thinking. It got especially quiet for a while there and the world heaved a sigh of relief and sighs of all kinds as we each had our experience. I think of my mom and how things have narrowed for her, how especially quiet it must be as she also goes through the motions of living among strangers, not quite so strange anymore, but not us. I think about my kiddos and how they are branching out and away. How it can be so lonely in a house full of people. How strange it is NOT to feel lonely here, at least for now anyway.

So, why not be in a small apartment on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean to be alone but not lonely and question “Why?”. It is really quite luxurious, when you think about it, so quiet here you can think, especially in the evenings…