It’s hard to believe that this One Rock Alone column has been a part of my life for the past eight years. As I look back through the archives, I feel like all of those different columns and poems reveal a lot about what I was pondering in my teenage and early adult years. The things I saw that bothered me or inspired me, or those things in my life that I contemplated, became the sources of my essays, rants and poems that came to be called One Rock Alone. I have been privileged to write this column for many years, and I also have enjoyed writing missions stories, testimonies and helping with Little Pebbles for many years as a writer for Living Stones News.

As she leads her horse toward the arena, her nerves feel frayed. Having spent countless hours practicing for showmanship, it’s finally time to see if the work has paid off. Her horse seems to feel her anxiousness and he shifts his feet and perks his brown ears forward. Dressed in business western attire, the judge of the horse show stands in the center of the arena. His expression gives no emotion, but he is watching everything.

He came to the nursing home lucid, though decidedly frail. He uses no cane. His face is lined with wrinkles that create a permanent smile on his care-worn face. He comes down for supper in the dining room. Sitting with a group of other older men, he is the tallest. Smiling, he greets all he meets with glittering eyes and a wave of his brown, bent fingers. He enjoys talking with his dinner mates, though it takes effort to help them understand his speech with their lack of hearing. Repeating his words is a habit as he tries to communicate.

It’s JMHO (just my humble opinion), but TTYL (talk to you later) doesn’t seem like the right thing to say at the end of a text. I wasn’t talking in the first place, and the next time we communicate will probably also be nonverbal. And that’s fine with me because I don’t really like talking on the phone, and the thought of actually talking to a real person is far worse. If I can just text you the regular platitudes, I don’t have to tell you how I’m really doing. If we keep our friendship only surface deep, we can always get along and be happy to know each other. Sometimes I’d rather leave it that way.

The TV commercial showed a 40-something woman going to her doctor. The woman smiled at the camera and tossed her hair glamorously out of her face. The camera zoomed in on her eyes. Once she was in the doctor’s office, viewers discovered she was there to get a prescription for a drug that was supposed to help thicken her receding eyelashes.

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, tacos, a good book, a warm blanket, a nice pillow.

Many things seem to spell comfort, and it’s easy to get used to being comfortable. Life seems better when all is well and contentment has set in. Comfort is like a friend you’ve known forever, a dog that greets you at the door every time you come home or your favorite coffee mug or baseball cap.

The day ahead of me is scheduled down to the minute.
It’s every chore and errand -- all these I must finish.
My plan allows no time to breathe, but that must be added in it!