June 18, 2024- I saw the word ‘paradise’ on someone’s post, this afternoon, and was moved to play Bruce Springsteen’s “Paradise”, from his album, “The Rising”, his 2002 response to the attacks on September 11, 2001. He sings three verses, depicting three different souls. Yet, when I first listened to the song, I thought of my wife, Penny, even then living under a cloud. Somehow, we’d have one another, for another nine years. She died in 2011.

I have not been triggered by this song, or anything else-not even anniversaries, until today. This afternoon, hearing those words hit me hard. Part of it is the aloneness that I choose, so I can’t point fingers. Yet, it is made harder by the silence.

Silence has always bothered me, after a week or so, from those to whom I feel especially close and after a month or two, from everyone else I love. I guess that’s why I am online so much, especially since Penny passed. It is also why I treasure living in a town where I can walk to where there are people whose companionship I value. Today, it was Planet Fitness and Wildflower Bakery. Other times, it is Raven Cafe, , or Zeke’s,or the Farmers Market -or Rafter Eleven, if I feel like a short drive.

When I was a teen, there was a cartoon about a time traveling wizard who sent his protege to distant places. When it was time for the episode to end, the wizard’s mantra was “Frizzle-Frazzle, Frizzle, Frome, time for this one to come home”. So often, I have faced the “frizzle-frazzle” of grandiose plans falling apart, and have “come home” to reality, with a straight face. I am sensing that my latest grand, feelings-based plans may be “frizzling” and “frazzling”. It’s that silence again. We’ll see, in a few days, or a few weeks.