The best way to show Carol that I know how to travel with a companion was to show her the pictorial evidence. But that meant showing her Carolyn’s Shutterfly books of our trips together. I worried that might be hard for Carol. Carol worried it would be hard for me. Instead, we were both awed to observe together the artistic eye that Carolyn possessed. For me it was rediscovery.

   I forget the specific circumstances, but Carolyn once emphatically chastised me for not having any interests. I actually don’t in the conventional sense of DIY,  woodworking, fixing up cars, feeding the poor or anything to do with yard work.

    What if loneliness is just a bad friend, you know, one you hang around with but know isn’t good for you. I had a visual cue of this idea in the hotel outside of Venice. At dinner I sat next to a man also dining alone. My immediate thought of seeing him, face downward toward his plate, was that he was not dining but eating. And that’s what I’d be doing as I took the empty table next to him. Why not engage him in conversation? (I have the stupidest better angels; they don’t know me at all.) So we both sat across from one another and ate alone.