Emptiness Inside
Summer days. Mostly I stay inside avoiding the heat. There were times when it would have been baseball all day. But that’s long gone. And there were times when I could have built a fence or deck. But those days are long gone, too. I don’t miss them much. They were just things I did when I was young and younger.
These days, if I do get outside, it’s mostly to mow, and I do that sitting down. So, it’s not much of a strain and the heat’s not much of a bother. I’ve done my pre-summer line trimming, and I’ve learned how to break it down into tiny segments. And the mowing is just to knock down what’s left of the tall late spring growth. A one-off nasty job that jolts the old back in ways the old back doesn’t like to be jolted.
Mostly summer is a time for music, books, and memories. Today, for instance, is the date my wife passed away six years ago. I don’t normally write about it, but death is fresh on my mind since a friend lost his wife in April to the same disease that took mine, and a second friend, who lost her husband to another disease, offered her condolences yesterday for my loss. It seems the universe would like me to think about it. So, I will. And I’ll quote a line from Waves by Sam Baker, “There’s emptiness inside that never goes away.”