So how does the Green Giant get all those peas out of the shell?  One of my granddaughters was wondering, and though I have no idea how he does it, I know how I do it: one pea at a time, one pod at a time picked from the basket in my lap. Same way beans are snapped, and garlic bulbs are cleaned, and onions are strung.

Our days, Wally’s and mine, were a series of apparently tedious tasks, tasks that beg for conversation, for companionship. The tasks that are left for the end of the day, when muscles are worn out by the heavy lifting of mowing, shoveling, raking. In summer it would be vegetables we were dealing with; other times he’d be cutting cloth for the rugs he wove, one strip at a time from a dismantled shirt or pair of pants, while I sorted beads or boxes of rag balls. If he was alone, the radio was on, country and western his favorite when our boys were growing up; in later years WERU’s eclectic mix of music and radical commentary appealed to him.

When he had a chair to cane he gladly left the loom and the endless pile of clothing to work for hours weaving long strands of cane in and out of the holes of a chair seat. Unlike a rug that was woven on spec, hung on a rack and hopefully sold one day, a chair was a guaranteed $70 or so, about what he charged for a typical seat. He liked that.

Up until five or six years ago he mowed lawns spring to fall, including Maplewood Cemetery. He used a push mower, walking untold miles behind it every season, with only his thoughts for company. He stacked wood every fall, the six or nine cords we need to heat this place. Brad Bowen brings it in three-cord loads, and it took Wally no more than a day and a half to have that huge, unwieldy mess stacked into neat, round piles all around our front yard. Then he’d say, call Brad for the next load.

My husband spent a lot of hours in his own company.

Watching him I learned about patience and perseverance. By nature I flitter from thing to thing. He was by far the better weaver than I, sitting down at the loom and not getting up until a rug was done. I was up and down, stirring the soup, answering the phone, or, as I liked to say, pulling the child out of the well. Oh, there was no well, and no child ever fell in, but I’ve often contrasted his single-mindedness to being male, my scatter-mindedness to being female. He could afford to sit there for hours; I had children to watch.

But all of that’s moot now; there is no he and she, just me. The work’s still here, the many tedious tasks that we wove into a life, our lives. Actually, that work is my salvation. Everybody does this their own way; grieving is intensely personal. It’s also universal, as half of every couple will lose their partner, (unless, of course, both are hit by the proverbial bus).  Grieving is a dual-sided thing, as the emptiness of loss gradually gives way to “what’s next?”

Or, as I’m beginning to understand, alone versus lonely. If lonely means having nobody around but yourself, phone never rings, dooryard is empty, speaking to no one but the dog for days, I’m not that. I have the good fortune to live in a place that’s truly a community of caring people. But, it turns out, grief and loneliness go hand in hand. Some part of you is continually mourning, often quietly and unobtrusively, going about its business while outwardly you laugh and plan and engage with normal life. This is the loneliness that other people can’t cure for you. You carry it around with you everywhere you go.

And big revelation, coming to me at this advanced age, but you can be lonely even in the company of your best friends and family. I suspect this isn’t news to many.

But alone? A different thing altogether. A good friend for many years was a woman who lived alone. Her kids were grown up and out, and while she had a relationship that was important to both, each lived in their own house, more companionable friends than inseparable lovers. I knew her well and often wondered at this relationship that never seemed to go anywhere. She in turn was bemused by my marriage, had witnessed our ups and downs through child-bearing, child-rearing and empty nesting.

How does she face the cold winter nights alone, I would say to Wally. How does she go home to an empty house? How on earth does she fill the days? Though she never put it in exactly these words, I know she puzzled over how we could stand living together, or more precisely, how I could stand living with him. 

Oh my, I used to think, no one can ever look deeply enough into someone else’s marriage to actually understand what’s going on. Anymore than I understood her pseudo-marriage, which actually continued until his early death, a loss she never really got over. Then, not so many years later, she followed him.

And here’s another revelation that’s not news to many: alone can be as rich and fulfilling as together. But in these months of grieving the loss of a spouse, stretching to a year and then, probably two or more, alone and lonely get all mixed up. One minute I’m reveling in my new freedom to come and go, eat when and what I want, lie on the couch all afternoon reading a novel, and then the next moment, the now-so-familiar tears well up and lonely kicks in.

This month the Library Book Group is discussing Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail by Ben Montgomery, a biography that spotlights the challenges of long-distance hiking. Come join in the discussion, whether you’ve read the book or not, 6 p.m. Tuesday August 15 at the Library.

Wednesday evening at 7 p.m., authors Kyrill Shabert and Lincolnville’s Tony Oppersdorff will present an illustrated talk on their new book Best Seashore Nature Sites: Midcoast Maine. The book, which is also the work of Des FitzGerald, has information on thirty-two public preserves from Freeport to Searsport, with maps, descriptions of each site, and hundreds of color photos. There are also articles on the flora and fauna to be found in our part of the world. Kryill and Tony’s earlier book, Best Nature Sites: Midcoast Maine also contains a wealth of information on sites along the Route One corridor. The talk is free and all are welcome.

Well, all right, summer’s not over yet, but by the middle of August the strawberries are long gone, the raspberries barely hanging on, and the blackberries are ready. Even the blueberries are mostly harvested. Last Saturday’s Blueberry Wingding was the best ever: some 3200+ breakfasts were served, 200 more than last year. Speaking as one of the pancake flippers, that’s more than 6000 pancakes produced in 3 ½ hours! Each year we get more efficient working in Rick McLaughlin’s kitchen at the Ferry Landing. Dozens of LIA members, as well as friends of the Wingding who just love working for it, bake blueberry goodies, pitch pop up tents, pour juice and coffee, set tables, take orders, mix batter, cook bacon and sausage (and snitch a bit), sell raffle tickets as well as donate raffle gift certificates, wait on tables, and finally, clean up by Rick’s 11 a.m. opening time. It’s a lot of fun for all of us, and it couldn’t happen without Rick’s generous donation of his kitchen and restaurant for the morning. The money raised goes towards scholarships for Lincolnville kids, as well as to maintenance of the LIA building, which also houses the Historical Society.

See you for breakfast next year!