Adrienne G. Cannon Writes: Those Lonely Days

By Adrienne G. Cannon Barbara kelly boats

Which of the multiple activities on my calendar should I choose for today? Most days my calendar is filled with activities — activities that I haven’t able to do for a year and a half. But then sometimes, things slow down and I am faced with little downtime. That’s when I can feel those lonely moments returning from the last calendar year up until a month or two ago. When we were first told to self-isolate to avoid catching the virus, I did. Sort of… but as a bird in a golden cage, I opened my door and left my apartment to set out for a new, but solitary, adventure each day.

Right, Illustration by Barbara Kelley

My first thoughts were to find some water as I always feel calmed by its presence. The nearby Potomac River offered me many hours of solitude with a book on my iPhone. When my eyes tired and I looked up I always found some aquatic birds or ducks, sometimes a passing dog, to whom I could talk. And then there were the parks nearby with picnic benches and neighborhoods with lush flower gardens. I learned to amuse myself for many solitary hours.

Now, as I think back on those lonely days, I find that they really did bring me a kind of subtle pleasure. Yesterday, at the end of summer, I felt it again. I had projects to do on the computer and other commitments coming up in the evening and the next day. But I find that I am beginning to cherish the decreasing number of hours in which I don’t have to think about anything except what’s around with me.

Sometimes it happens when I am taking a break sitting on my patio; sometimes it’s the short drive to the grocery store when along the way I see the roadsides covered with wildflowers of all colors. Or sometimes it happens when I am at the pool feeling a little lonesome as my aging friends have disappeared from the poolside and I am surrounded by younger strangers.

I think I am changing and now I have developed a new talent for daily living that was a necessary routine during the pandemic shutdown. Or maybe it that my advancing age is causing me to physically slow down. Yet I suspect that the period of forced adjustment has taught me to appreciate the calmer minutes of my day. Perhaps it is just a flashback to the reality of the past year or, even more startling, to the lonely months I spent, newly alone, when I became a widow.

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Adrienne G. Cannon Writes: Those Lonely Days

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