...and then...

I've been trying on the idea of lonely for some months now. The word first tumbled from some consciousness and out of my mouth on a car ride with my friend.  “I’ve been lonely for as long as I can remember,” we were both stunned to hear me say.   We had just pulled up to her apartment when this unannounced truth slid into open air.  We’ve been friends and colleagues for more than twenty years: clocking countless hours of logistics, laughter, life and lament.  For as long as I can remember. I've never described myself as lonely, save a post-breakup season. Isolated, either. True, most of my world is solitary: sitting at a laptop, traveling to an engagement, working from my empty nest home office, even speaking in front of an audience or class. By default, I’m alone a lot, but lonely is different. Isolation is different. My language, instead, is that I’m “a high-functioning introvert,” was "an arts and crafts kid” and have always “spent a lot of time in my hea...

We were all hugs in the middle of the coffee line.  Ours was a long overdue sit down now gift wrapped in a new project. We chatted through the line to a table by the window. Our sitting tipped the tiny cafe's count to "half full," joining a man with the newspaper, a pair of women studying and a shop regular who tittered with the barista while buying her bulk beans. My coffee mate and I were laughing and catching up, taking advantage of the holiday time warp. Not long into our conversation, a young guy walked through space and asked if we knew Mr. Wilson. We didn't. The young man moved on, melting into ambient cafe shapes and noises behind our conversation. Standing on the opposite side of the high table next to ours, the young man blurts out "HOW MUCH?" but to no on in particular. He walked out. We raised our eyebrows and kept talking. We were coasting into the brainstorming portion of our meeting when my coffee-mate's gaze was pulled beyond my s...