Shortly after noon, having seated myself on a deck chair overlooking Braddock Cove,  it was a flawless drift into a spellbound state of languor. Nothing but a blue sky and the occasional squawk of a Great egret or a Laughing gull. The breeze from the south immersed me in a blissful lapse of vanished thought. By design I propelled the expansion of my wandering diversion, confusing the immediacy of the moment with the rapture of the balmy air. At last I faded entirely, carried away into a dreamy sleep, unperturbed, inviolate and remote.

The studied capitulation to this backyard amusement is without parallel here on Hilton Head Island where historically my dedication has been unrelentingly to the beach and the sea. But a combination of factors – primarily having returned my tricycle yesterday to the proprietor – plus the irreversible collapse of my erstwhile physical mobility, have contributed to this new scheme of retreat on the island. While I won’t say that today marked the first instance of having cultivated this particular merriment; somehow its gusto and relevancy were heightened today.  Perhaps it is the acceptance of its novelty; or, the uninhibited communication with the distant oyster beds or the sight of a random launch upon the water. Retreating to this private arena has isolated me from the sea though it is only as close as across the park and along the boardwalk to the shore.  Nonetheless the paramountcy of my physical decline has succeeded to defeat even those proximate ambitions.

Conflicting with this seeming disparity is the belief that paradoxically part of my physical complaint is the consequence of having overexerted my limbs by repeated application on the tricycle (and – I accept – without the benefit of stretching). As you might guess, I am seeking to palliate the abuse by uncompromising resilience in a state of idleness. It is for the moment as close as I shall get to massage; that is, allowing the tightened muscles of my thighs and lower legs to expand and recover some of their former ambivalence. Already for example I sense that the former constraint of my cycling exertion has diminished. Though I acknowledge the imperative and utility of exercise, I think too there is a time when relaxation is in order. I have accordingly chosen to do so in the remaining several days here.

Normally getting me to retire to the subdued atmosphere of a backyard deck would have been unheard of. It is not frankly a posture I have regularly assumed in the past on Hilton Head Island or elsewhere. But admittedly it is an incremental alliance, one in fact which I have already begun at home by sitting on the balcony looking upriver in the late afternoon when the sunshine glistens across the placid waterway. It is an abbreviation and consolidation of old age. I compliment myself for having recognized the dominion of nature as it inescapably broadens its measure upon my confined state of being. Confessing the preoccupation with decomposition by any retail is hardly something to proclaim; but nonetheless it is not fiction and as such it is all the more worthy of at least some attention and attempted adaptation.

Therein lies the genesis of my own enchantment; the North American passenger automobile. As chance would have it, the vehicle figures by no small account among my ancestors on both sides of the familial fence.  For example one of the earliest recollections I have of my late mother’s brother Larry (my favourite uncle) was his red convertible Bonneville Pontiac, a monstrous car by today’s standards.  On my father’s side, his father drove a V12 Cadillac sedan. My own father perpetuated the inherited animation by driving his 8-cylinder Buick Riviera to and from New Brunswick to enjoy his 200-acre parcel of land there. I recall too my father having told me that, prior to marriage, he owned a Studebaker convertible automobile with power windows. He latterly continued (while resident in Stockholm) to fuel his appetite for sedans by dealing directly with the Ford Motor Company to arrange the overseas transport of a number of cars including a Ford XL convertible which I remember having collected with my father in Rotterdam during one of my summer visits from boarding school. I recall too that when driving the car throughout Europe I regularly heard disparaging remarks from other drivers, “Votre camion!“; but on the French and Italian riviera it was an entire success.

For now I have chosen to punctuate my own mechanical divertissement with a fully-electric automobile (Cadillac Optiq). The allusion (yes, that’s the intended spelling) is promoted by inevitability on all sides. I am certainly not the first in our apartment building to have a fully electric automobile but for me it constitutes a noticeable switch.  The car I have selected is being manufactured for the first time in North America this year; so, we’ve decided to wait until August to order a 2026 model. Already I am calculating the expanse of my travel in the new vehicle, partly as occasion to test the boundary of the battery when fully charged (which I believe is about 300 miles). Naturally the customary Petro-Canada wash card will prevail unobstructed by this internal modification.