Far from the Madding Crowd

The wet weather did after all 

give way to a dry bank holiday, 

though with little sun here in the Midlands.

All around us the houses and gardens are quiet

as families have taken advantage of the holiday

to be up and away,

and I find myself swamped by a sense of loneliness 

that I find hard to shake off.

(Hubby is bowling).

I know I 've mentioned that I usually relish solitude 

but this doesn't make me immune from the occasional sense

of isolation that is part and parcel of our human condition.

As I write that I remember the words,

"so many lonely people" 

from Paul Mc Cartney,s "Eleanor Rigby",

and it's true that loneliness has been called 

the epidemic of the age

as families split, change, and move on, or away,

and the core of community crumbles and is lost.

One answer for this can be the

"light a candle rather than curse the darkness" 

approach of getting up off your butt

and calling on somebody,

perhaps somebody you know who's experiencing real isolation, 

from illness, bereavement, or some other circumstance.

A phone call will do, 

just to let them know that they aren't completely forgotten,

with the added bonus that you also feel more "connected".

Strange to say just as these thoughts were going through my mind my brother rang,

and it actually made me feel worse.
So much for that then!

The thing is I can visualise where he was speaking from, 

(my childhood home),

and I so wanted to be there with him.

This begs the question how much of my loneliness 

is a sort of nostalgia for something past, or even imagined?

some sort of life that I feel others may have

and I do not, perhaps? 

Am I sitting here with a sense

of all the families enjoying themselves together 

whilst I languish alone?

Am I in fact just having a session of PLOM?

i.e. Poor Little Old Me!

Sounds very much as though I need to snap out of it

and celebrate what I have.

Time for cup of tea I think!

Oh, and to post this photo of one of my favourite

"silent messengers".

As you can see it's a lovely flourishing tree. 

What you may not be able to see quite as clearly 

is that it emerges

from some initial damage

at it's start.

In fact for quite a while

it merely lay along the ground with little sign

that it would ever grow into a tree at all. 

Gradually the sheer life force within asserted itself, 

and low and behold,

a thing of beauty!

Maybe things happen to make us truly know what isolation is. 

A breakdown in relationships.

Loss, and grief of any sort.

I've mentioned my own two years in bed in my teens

in an earlier post.

We may feel broken and prostrate with grief

for what we believe might have been,

yet even as we feel these things life is returning.

Who knows,

without being aware of it we may become

a sign of encouragement too.

God Bless