Leaving Solitary Confinement

My Friday meeting with the aforesaid new group of friends had me bouncing this weekend. It seems as if I am making headway into new social circles and am beginning to throw off my mantle of shyness and decorum. Be that as it may, it is refreshing to break new ground in the familiar agenda of bowls or occasional old friends, valued as these may be. I intend now to join in with the keep-fit-with-weights class, salsa dancing (perhaps), suggested musical evenings, the running of an art clas. Today I will invite some of these ladies to a supper evening at my house.

They are all attractive people. Apart from one who had come from afar and who had, I thought, that recognisable look of devastation about her, they were all serene, confident and certainly secure in their dress and mannerism. Within our own individual experiences we are bonded by a lack of partner, whether through death or grass widowhood; we are making up our own accompaniments, entertainments and futures. These Friday get-togethers are little steps along the way.

I do not wish for any other man in my life. Women will do. I abhor the thought of the complications of a man/woman relationship - the establishment of dominance, the giving over of control, the compromises, the ups and downs. And I do not wish to care for anyone else's failing health. I could not bear to worry, again, about someone else's survival. I could not hover over his hospital bed.

I am better off alone, and with women friends. I've had my heterosexual life thank you very much, and the other could not for me be a reality. But I like women, they are easy company, we understand each other without the intensity of heterosexual confrontation or even commitment. One can have many women friends and accept them just for who they are, not for how you fit in - or not - with their ideas of a relationship. One does not have to either dominate or be subjugated. One just has to have fun. A laugh. A chat. A cup of tea.

So, Friday evening, here. I love this rented house; I can make it intensely tidy and attractive for entertaining. Sympathetic lighting from small lamps and candles, good tableware, wine glasses, fabric napkins, my beloved oak refectory dining table or outside, the big round table F fitted up with a highly lacquered green lazy susan and our comfortable cane chairs. The latter is on my large cool veranda facing the lake and bulrushes, in which either bright orange little birds flutter by day or frogs serenade at night. I choose the setting with the weather and it gives me pleasure to dress the house for the occasion.

If I sound slightly smug right now I apologise. Smugness after a long period of angst cannot be a bad thing. It means progress, something being achieved. Yesterday I spent entirely alone and inert, I did not go anywhere. Time passed in that slow vacuum of the solitary but it is a tempo now that I am getting used to. I no longer chafe against the fact that I am on my own or the silence. It no longer frightens me. I can feel quite OK with neighbourhood sounds and find peace rather than dismay within my own four walls - sanctuary now, not solitary confinement.