“One is the Loneliest Number,” croons someone doing a bad rendition of this song on my radio as I drive up Vineland Avenue on a sunny (are there any other kinds) LA day. In my head, I hum along with the Aimee Mann version. Actually, I belt it out . . .

“One is the loneliest number that you will ever doooooo ….One is the loneliest number you will ever knowowowowowowow . . . One is the loneliest number you will ever dooooooo . . . One is the loneliest number, much, much worse than two . . . “

I stop.

Worse than two?

Though I am not a math teacher, this does not seem to add up. … I scan my brain for evidence of twoness in my life. The time I had to pay rent on two places as a move overlapped. ... definitely not better than one. The time I had two roommates . . . so not better than one (or none). Still have two student loans to pay off . . . again, one or none would not be worse.

Right. That’s not the point of the song is it? Two, as in partner, marriage, lover, better half. But even then, isn’t the two just an illusion? Are we always just two ones who are sharing certain time and space for a bit?

If this summer is supposed to teach me something, perhaps it is that One is not the loneliest number. Loneliness is has nothing to be with One, but with disconnection. Anything other than oneness is just temporary, either a supplement to our oneness or an avoidance of it, but never can it be an escape or elimination.

Think of Swiss cheese. I heard that in the cheese business they have been trying to develop new processing so that Swiss cheese no longer has holes. This made me sad. I like the texture of the holes in Swiss cheese, the way the edges feel on my tongue, the occasional absence of cheese and flavor emphasizing the presence of it. Some holes are not meant to be filled. The holes are part of its essence, its basic characteristic

Our Swiss cheese-ness is never more apparent as when we lose something that can never be replaced – old pictures, friends, lover, and, most of all, parents.

My mother’s birthday card thanked her for giving me what no one else could, a Mother’s Love. For once, a card that I actually felt expressed what I felt. I knew that once she is gone no one could be what she is to me. A new hole as life slowly ages me, pushing the substance into a denser more poignant me.

A me, one and complete, wrapping around the various twos that have come and gone in my life, keeping that space open for the ones who might return. One . . . complete . . . much, much better than two.