Home alone

Staffan is gone, and Anton is gone, and I am all on my own to do as I please. I am not as desperate about being on my own as I once used to be. Some years ago, when Staffan was away all winter escaping from the nasty Swedish climate to the south of France, I learned from a good friend to distinguish between loneliness and solitude. So rather than feeling abandoned and unhappy I try to enjoy the calmness and silence. I know it is an illusion, but what would we be without our illusions?

I keep to a few rules when I am on my own, such as making the bed, wearing decent clothes and having cooked meals. I allow myself to stay in bed until eight and prepare my breakfast in an aesthetically satisfactory manner. I clean the house, which I will from now on do on Saturdays, like everybody else, rather than sporadically to get away from the computer. I pay the current bills – this does not count as work, so I am not breaking any promises. Then I make some cream of chanterelle soup, from the dried chanterelles that Dalia gave me in Stockholm; she had picked and dried them herself. I sit outside in the sun with my bowl of soup. I should probably go to the gym or take a walk, and I should definitely go and get some groceries. A less initiated person would perhaps suggest reading a book, but for me reading is work. I simply want to sit down quietly doing nothing at all.