Love

Where did this day go? Squandered, on the face of it. Slept until noon and never left the house.

But this morning a friend reached out on social media after no contact in over 20 years. He escaped what the doctors called certain death not long ago. He endured a surgery that ended his sex life as he knew it, and now he wonders what his wife will do. They have young children together. He's already planning to enjoy nature, if she goes, and to remain a father to his boys. All his close friends have died.

Reminded, yet again, that everything we love, we lose. Everything that brings pleasure or joy will bring pain and suffering when it is taken from us. We leave here holding nothing. It's hard to live keeping that in focus, but we should.

A pair of tufted tit-mice perched on a branch so I could see them close to the empty feeder. They're sending me a message. A robin kept flying up to the windows on three sides of the house.

Messaging intermittently with a friend who has been hibernating for years and is now feeling the excitement and the agony of waking. She sends Sara Vaughan.

And with my daughter, who is putting a book of poems together, trying to figure a way home. She encourages me in my own writing and makes me cry.

We still have the beautiful things I listed for you.
You can probably add a few of your own.
We also have love.

And the greatest of these is love.