Through a Glass Darkly

I have lived alone for one thousand, two hundred and twelve days now, but I am only beginning to recognize the fact of that aloneness.

Lately, it feels as if two realities are at play, and every once in a while I get a glimpse through the veil. On one side of the nylon netting, I live in a darling little house facing a pond. There is me. There is my dog. We are alone here (if you don't count the occasional invasion of mice) but do not often recognize a void in that state of being.

On the other side of a gossamer dream lies a great waiting, an opening that wants to be filled. It's hard to explain, but I just walked from the laundry room back to my bedroom and found myself surprised no one was there. Not as though I actually expected a person to be present, but as though I'd somehow accidentally seen the hole where someone could be, over there between the bookshelves and the big wooden chair.

Always just a flash. I blink it away the way a man might glimpse the top of a woman's silk stocking and then convince himself he's imagining things because women don't wear silk stockings and garters anymore. Although I am not given to referencing the Bible, with every one of these flashes, this verse from 1 Corinthians hangs in the air:

"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."

There is nothing I want more than to know and be known. I do so hope these flashes are pointing the way.