It's Been a While
There's a foot of snow outside. The last remnant of Christmas, a Christmas tree half blinking in uncoordinated colors, waits to find if it is to be rehomed or sent to that great holiday midden in the sky. One cat sleeps six inches from the space heater, another on the top flet of a six-foot cat tree, while the senior citizen sleeps under the coffee table waiting for the next meal or eternity, whichever comes first. The scenario is an imperfect metaphor on my current existence.
Retirement hasn't been a challenge. Most days it's almost scary how easily I've slipped into the flow of beads that constitutes time. I am orthodox in my observance of COVID restrictions: I see no friends or relatives; I do not enter stores and only enter doctor's offices under duress, I walk the trails of the local preserve when the weather is unfit for others to be on them, and watch the traffic pass my house as I drink my morning coffee. I look forward to more satisfying times, but don't anticipate that they will arrive any time soon.
So I turn to an empty book, a blank page and will see what falls out of my void of a mind.