After sixty-one years of living with my husband, he died this year and now, I’m alone but I’m not lonely or sad.
So you, and all else want to know what I will do from this time on.
Let me tell you….

I will arise and go now and go to Innisfree
And a small cabin build there of clay and wattle made
Nine bean rows will I have there and a hive for the honey bee
And live alone in a bee-loud glade.

And I will have some peace there for peace comes dropping slow
Dropping with the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow
And evening full of linnets’ wings.

I think that, like Yeats, my Innisfree will have a life of quietude, of peace and tranquility. Maybe long, lazy days of inertia, permitting the world to go about its business while I indolently look on, leaving alone what does not concern me. It is all I want after more than half a century dedicated to work and service to others. Now I want to spend some time with ME.

Innisfree is the best metaphor that I can think of for Series End: Episode 1
Maybe I will emerge from my cabin long enough to travel a bit or visit my children but always the return will be my respite.

There’s much to do, much to learn and always the whole universe of events to maybe, look at and smile on, or to decry and mourn over. But not too much of this intrusion to break the solitude. My bean rows will need tending, the bees will gather their honey in that same glade while I daub the wattle, plant some flowers, or pull a few weeds.

I know what each day will bring me because I’ll tell it what I want. Some exercise, morning rambles, some challenge to my brain, a project to complete, a painting long languishing in the labyrinths of my brain to bring to life, a few phone chats with family and friends to share laughter and then a bowl of cherry ice-cream in an evening “full of linnets’ wings”. And the cicadas will emerge after 200 years to sing for me for I will not hear their songs again.

This my dear, is MY Innisfree.

Excerpt from poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by W.B. Yeats

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