Awakening to a sunshiny day – especially during that narrow avenue called springtime – is my preference. Not that I abhor the contemplative inspiration of multi-designed grey clouds in shimmering white billows. But never have I purposively distanced myself from a uniformly azure sky. Yet today I had to work to accommodate the balance of Nature.

The temperature barely rose to a high of 10°C and there were wind gusts up to 30 km/h making the temperature feel cooler. Fortunately I had the foresight to wear my red shell atop my Polo shirt and sweater. The morning abbreviation of the day’s intended lethargy – that is, my tricycle ride about the neighbourhood – was punctuated by prolonged gossip with a former neighbour who clearly enjoys the relation of historical reminiscences. The resource today was the St. Lawrence Seaway (confined largely to shoreline Hwy#2 from Gananoque to Cornwall).

After 1945, proposals to introduce tolls to the seaway were not sufficient to gain support for the project by the U.S. Congress. Growing impatient, and with Ontario desperate for the power to be generated by hydroelectricity, Canada began to consider developing the project alone. This seized the imagination of Canadians, engendering a groundswell of nationalism around the St. Lawrence. On September 28, 1951, Canadian Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent advised U.S. President Harry S. Truman that Canada was unwilling to wait for the United States and would build a seaway alone; the Canadian Parliament authorized the founding of the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority on December 21 of that year. Fueled by this support, Saint Laurent’s administration decided during 1951 and 1952 to construct the waterway alone, combined with the Moses-Saunders Power Dam.

On April 25, 1959, large, deep-draft ocean vessels began streaming to the heart of the North American continent through the seaway, a project supported by every administration from Woodrow Wilson through Eisenhower.

While I appreciated my neighbour’s candid accounts – illustrating his frank insight into the realities of human society – my attention became blurred by my Apple watch and the tricycle odometer both of which had paused to the point of darkness.

The ensuing drive into the periphery of the city was defined by its own peculiarly individual characteristic; namely, fatigue. In spite of having lately observed the “early to bed, early to rise” Spartan formula, apparently upon the thankful completion yesterday of a succession of mandatory calendar appointments for us both, I have relapsed into moderate focus. It was only upon returning to the barn (and having put the horse into its stall) that I judiciously succumbed to the influence of weariness.

I indulged myself in the exceeding pleasure of an afternoon nap.

The prescription was indisputably successful! I can think of no other ad hoc mechanism so patently useful to “restart” oneself. Reviving this afternoon from my 2-hour profligacy, I instantly felt the advantage of the spontaneous extravagance.

Curiously I am independently reluctant to subscribe to the interruption of daily commerce. This empty-headed adherence to unadulterated habit no doubt evolves from a lifetime of commitment to study and work. I have never deceived myself to imagine that any violation of elemental prophesy is a safe guidepost. It was for example the enlightened comedienne Phyllis Diller who profoundly observed, “The harder I work, the luckier I get!”

Propelled by similarly axiomatic adages – such as “Nobody’s listening; nobody cares” and “Don’t save it for the funeral” – I have widened the pathway of my experience to adapt to removal from mainstream society where the removal is as casual and as fertile as an afternoon nap. I won’t say that I am about to broadcast the advantage. Nor am I about to recommend the improvement to me or anyone else. But, like carrot cake, its occasional fulfillment is neither unwarranted nor unhelpful.