The silence of solitude is welcome and needed.  The silence of loneliness feels quite different.  It is a source of pain and distress, common even before the pandemic and ubiquitous now.  Like hunger and thirst, loneliness is a sensation that is telling us something essential is missing – our sense of feeling connected in a meaningful way to the larger web of life.  There are steps we can take, and help each other take, to transform the silence of loneliness into sounds of gratitude and gladness.