I was going to post on the first day of spring but I couldn’t get into the mood to write long enough.  It’s…snowing again. I grant you, the snow here isn’t as bad as it is in Nova Scotia right now, but I empathize  We had snow that bad a couple of years ago.  My dad actually had a very interesting point!  Why aren’t they shovelling it into the ocean?  Too much environmental degradation?  Ah heck, I don’t know.

Anyway!  A hermit’s life is always interesting.  On the heels of a bad encounter in Saskatoon with a gentleman whom needs all the prayers and thoughts of good things we can muster, I had a call very early Friday morning from another friend up in Saskatoon.  Now I’m a night owl, so I thought it was kind of funny that I should find myself at 1:00 pm looking at my phone and asking myself, why in the name of all things green would she call me at that ungodly hour?

I put my phone away, walked the dog, and went on with my day:  no message, must not be important.

Saturday I sent a text with the new running gag, you’ve stolen my phone.  Long story.  Rather not get too deeply into it.  The conversation only lasted for a few lines, but in those lines I realized that where I was looking for an ear and to maybe grieve a bit, it simply wasn’t there.  I got shut down fast, and my compost side went into that deep, dark, decomposing murkiness that does nothing but heat up, rot things, and stink.

So after I spent the bulk of the night sulking I realized I’d probably be better to bend like these damn seedlings rather than uproot anything.  I turn the tray these tomatoes are in and within 40 minutes they’ve already begun to lean the opposite direction to get better light.  In them I see potential for sauces, sandwiches, warm fruit off the vine, canned vegetables, you name it.  But not every seed germinated.  There are some that have still got the husks of the seeds on the leaves, and they’re fighting to get them off, the leaves opening slowly like a little ring holding the crown of a husk on them.

Number one rule of a hermit, is be the hermit.  That means, internally work through your stuff but don’t become the stuff.  Hard thing to do.  It means, let things compost but be prepared to turn the compost.  So she wasn’t able to give me what I needed.  Maybe she’s not in the space where she can, or wants to.  That’s not necessarily her fault.

What I find somewhat stunning if not crazy is the fact that over the last week, 3 guys have popped into my life, all three basically unavailable for three different reasons, and I simply walk the dog at night, look up into the sky, and wonder why this Creator has such a strange way of making a joke.  Last night, guy #3 bailed on a date we’d made.  I don’t blame him.  These days it’s not easy to like someone and not get frightened.  Especially given my own circumstances in the last month.

Loneliness is not a curse, it’s a state of being that never disappears, but it does dissipate given the ways we occupy our time.  Being a hermit is the way of learning to master that skill, and to translate that mastery into everything that we do.

Would it please melt already.