I put one of my favorite Roy Orbison songs – “The Only One” on the Ipod speaker this morning. Like a lot of great writers and singers, Orbison understand longing and sorrow and I have always thought that one of the lines in this song spoke to life as well as anything I could think of: “You bite the bullet and then you chew it…”

Maria was in one of her obsessive organizing modes, sweeping through the house arranging things artistically and I grabbed her and asked her to dance. She was startled and preoccupied, but like me, she never turns down an offer to dance, so in our living room, the sun streaming through the windows, the dogs scattering out of the way we closed our eyes and slow-danced to “The Only One,” a song that softens the soul and opens up the hardest heart.

And I know the words to this song by heart and sang them to Maria while we dance slowly through the old farmhouse living room, ghosts and angels and spirits gathering as a chorus.

“Everyone you know’s been through it, you bite the bullet then you chew it,

Tie the knot at the end of your rope, buy a book to help you cope,

But no consolation gonna come, you’re the only one..”

And then, my favorite stanza, the one that speaks to me of loneliness and longing, love and loss, despair and hope, and I whispered this to my love as we swirled slowly around the soft, the sunlight steaming through the windows.

“And you’re the only one with a broken heart,

The only one who’s afraid of the dark,

The only one in a crowded room,

The only one who sees a blue moon…”

How wise this song is, reminding me that everyone I know has been through it, and so we are all experiencing it together,

yet somehow, when all is said and done, a part of us is alone with it, and sometimes there is no consolation but our own. This is my life, I think, perhaps yours. A wise and true song. How wonderful I have someone to dance with.

“Take a look through history, recant some bits of poetry, you’ll find the words still ring true. Some things don’t change, some things do.“