A Lesson I Re-Learn Every Two or Three Years

Mary is just back from a fortnight's visit with her mother. (Mother is in Dublin. We are 15 minutes or so from the Pacific Ocean on the left-hand side of the North American continent.) How did I in my youth ever expect to live a celibate religious life when a mere two weeks without my wife puts me into a blue funk of Homeric proportions? Even playing pipes didn't bring its full measure of joy. But now the sun is once again in the heavens and spring has returned to the land. Iam hiems transiit, imber abiit et recessit, flores apparuerunt in terra nostra. Life is good again.