The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Tuesday 07 April 2015

A quiet week spent. Sweet Grecy is in the Philippines taking care of business interests. Sam spent time in Orange County with her cousin Maia. I knocked around with ghosts in an empty house. I used to prefer that kind of life. The quiet and solitude of it. Not so much anymore. I have grown used to company. Most of all, I have grown used to Grecy’s companionship. We have been married almost fourteen years. It is a successful marriage that started with one simple letter. Everything, all of it, has grown from that

She is a farmer. A land owner who loves having the rich black soil of the barrio under her fingernails. Bananas, rice and corn are the products she brings to market. The two of us have built a place there, in that small community of about eight-hundred souls. Though far from city lights, it is in its own way, a hurly-burly place. A hardscrabble place where most do not own land, and eke out their living doing farmer labor. There is one road in and out. A dirt track that leads from the two lane national highway, travels in a straight line for about a mile, then, in front of our house, splits in two and circles the barrio. Everybody who comes and goes passes in front of our house. Most pass on foot, but some travel deluxe on snazzy dollar-down-dollar-a-week motorbikes.

Four generations live in our house. It is a boisterous, roomy place that can become a bit overwhelming. Sometimes, I crave the quietude of a rush hour Grand Central Station. But in truth, there is a joy in living there that transcends all that can be imagined. Evenings are best for me. Evenings, when heat breaks, immense thunderheads stalk the horizon, and toad music, a symphony of belches and farts, their music of love, commences.

These are the things I think about in Grecy’s absence. I hope she calls tonight. Hearing her voice will reassure me she is not a figment of my imagination. It will calm my spirit. I will sleep well knowing she is, in a sense, beside me, and I do not have to suffer great aloneness. That there is someone in this world who loves me above all others. There is comfort in that knowing. Comfort that makes me want to hang around this world a while longer.

Sig

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