Traveling on the River

The days of February seem to be moving quietly and swiftly by ... it seemed it was just yesterday the beginning of February and Venice was close in my visual field, and now I look at a full calendar of events and know that if I were to space out in any way I would quickly find myself at the end of the month, looking the March retreat at Spirit Rock right in the face.  Just move mindfully through time and space, I tell myself, and you will find the richness of your everyday life and you won't fret about the passage of time....  And yet my everyday life sometimes feels so wanting -- as though in my mind's view at least, there is something not quite full or rich or meaningful enough there.  Ever since my adventure in Venice I have felt this acute aloneness that characterizes my life, and along with it,  a questioning :  Have I chosen this aloneness, and if so, why?  If I have not chosen it, then how did it come to be?  Or, should I just give myself a break (in Buddhist thinking) and understand it as simply a part of the passing phenomena of existence?
Am sitting in my house by the beach watching the sun try to break through the clouds, spreading its warmth on this damp place, and I am reflecting on a conversation with a dear friend from last night.   We looked at our roles as single elder women in the world, and the different landscapes present in each of our lives -- hers filled with people and activities, all meaningful and fulfilling, mine just barely punctuated with people and work.  As the conversation ensued, I began to realize that I somehow must have willed myself to stay apart, to pull back from the intercourse of society.  Though I travel, eat out, go to movies, look at art, attend concerts, I usually do all this as a solitary soul.  It was this solitary soul that I encountered so directly in Venice, and for whom I tried hard to have compassion.  My dear friend described me as an "intellectual" and an "observer," as though the flow of my life is some sort of course of study for me, an opportunity to observe and understand the human condition, including my own.  There is something about this observer character that feels very familiar to me, because in fact I have been doing this for a very long time.  An only child trying to navigate a world of dysfunctional adults, I learned quickly to pull back to try to understand the lay of the land, to figure out where it was safe to go and when.  Lots of time spent sitting and watching ... and thinking ... and more watching ...  There have been chapters along the way of engagement and participation and energy :  the relationship thing, raising children, getting a college degree or two, teaching, trying my hand at business.  But, then I fall almost gratefully into a space of no structure:  of learning how to take care of this 65 year old body, of discovering the joys and insights of meditation, of immersing myself in playing Bach or Chopin on my grandmother's exquisite piano, and in this chapter there is a watery flow to my life, and fewer people in my midst.  Sounds like I'm describing one of the phases of aging  --  going from being youthful IN the world to pulling away in order to reflect and embrace it all as an elder....
One question which occurs to me:  can one have the space and time for reflection in the midst of a fully engaged life, or does it require some amount of detaching?  And if I am in fact spending this solitude reflecting on the quality of life, what is it that I  understand about it all?
What occurs to me right now, looking out at a magnificent blue ocean splashing to shore outside my window, is that life feels like one long river, with many little streams and tributaries feeding it, and many twists and turns in its timeless journey: nothing staying the same, looking the same, but just the constant of a current moving forward ..... until there is no more life force to travel anymore.  The segment of the river I find myself on now is one which looks like solitude.  Spacious and confined, light and dark, melancholy and joyous, mindful and dreamy.  Downriver who knows what the geography will look like.