This morning, mid-week and in the middle of the still frozen month of February in Canada, while breaking the fast with our friends Bruce and Graham in a lively restaurant in nearby Smiths Falls – and celebrating Bruce’s upcoming 73rd birthday, we stumbled upon a visit to Hilton Head Island.

My partner Denis and I have made tentative plans to spend a couple of months on Hilton Head Island next winter. The venue of our proposed resort is a cottage in Sea Pines plantation where we have stayed before. Serendipitously we have escaped the obstruction of possible rental there by this year’s guests (who would have had first choice) because the place has lately been undergoing significant renovation and is therefore currently uninhabited. We have already spoken with our longstanding estate agent on Hilton Head Island and she has deferred our engagement of a binding rental contract until the rental rates for the upcoming year are finalized.

The allusion to Hilton Head Island this morning arose during our breakfast confab when discussing travel in general. We unanimously agreed that currently travel in the United States of America is less than attractive.  Add to this discredit the dislike of air travel, not to mention travel anywhere in the world for that matter. But getting to Hilton Head Island by car is a comfortable jaunt from Ontario. And, as I told Bruce and Graham, “Nothing is certain at this time, but I’d like to have at least one last jaunt on Hilton Head Island before succumbing to old age entirely.”

In short, Hilton Head Island is a marvel!  And one worth sustaining or investigating. So when Bruce and Graham jokingly surmised a visit with us on Hilton Head Island, we glowingly embraced the opportunity.  Naturally such an adventure is currently up-in-the-air so nothing whatever is finalized.  However it plainly evolved as a fortuitous thought!

As it happens, Bruce and Graham are shortly to embark upon a singular wintry vacation in the Province of Québec not far from where Bruce formerly had a lakeside residence where I visited him many years ago. While the occasion has the excitement of coming full circle, there are many other reasons to promote the possibility of a congenial rally in South Carolina (among them the further unanticipated acquaintance I have with Graham’s step-father whom I have known approaching 50 years). Yet, as I say, there are many reasons in favour of the suggestion.

Meanwhile I am adjusting what I call my personal focus upon life in general.  As Bruce and I shared at table this morning, old age stubbornly – and increasingly – resists change. Today’s events have strangely enabled me to distill my own preferences and ambitions. There is no question that the recent disturbances between Canada and our American neighbours has flattened our emotions. But imagining the possibility of renewing those acquaintances, mixed with our fellow Canadians, is both invigorating and settling.

I punctuated this collective euphoria with my customary afternoon drive about the countryside, once again stimulated by the clean, dry roads. Though there is already warning of another upcoming winter storm, the forecasted temperatures are incrementally above zero.  The delight and respite of springtime is within sight! Narrowing one’s focus in manners such as these is at the very least beneficial even if not otherwise manifestly productive. As I said to Denis, “Now there’s a thought!”