It’s early spring. I’m sitting on the deck in the late afternoon sunshine, wallowing in the luxury of indolence, unanimity and solar warmth. The steady honking of the geese and the faraway blur of traffic are tarnished by a shallow hum competing with the sparkle of tiny birds and a fresh wind racing atop the burgeoning bounds of the river. In the field is the collapsing ruin of a cattle shed now almost buried to its top in similarly neglected shoreline reeds. The brown choppy cultivated soil practically stirs with emotion and objective, a psychedelic shimmer.

In my reverie I am prompted to recall the singular features of Mississippi Mills, its collision with art and athletics; and its correspondence with the United States, all reminiscent of my own positive alliances bridging Park Avenue in New York City, the Musée des beaux arts in Montréal and the sculpture of Dr. James Naismith outside my law office and that of Dale Dunning by my hearth. Recalling too the art show 50 years ago in the theatre of the Old Town Hall, backing into my colleague from St. Andrew’s College and Dalhousie law school, whose family lived at The Glen in Almonte. From there rambling to more austere connections, all miraculously completing the cycle and the strange pathways of life including Old Burnside and its inevitable transitions with those in between, at once reviving and subduing, from the Gatehouse and Strathburn farm to the beginning of Malcolm Street and then to the Reformed Presbyterian Church, its minister and congregation, my piano teacher and White Lake. Desperate images of poignancy at Kerry Funeral Home on Elgin Street and nearby the initial dinner in town with the Judge whose wife strangely led to Collie Woollen Mills in the Village of Appleton nearby my beloved Mississippi Golf Club upriver from where I am now stationed in the western sunshine. Eventually tying to 279 Country Street and one of my first and most memorable clients with whose daughter I am by coincidence a regular correspondent.

At table this evening – a modest feast of greens and protein – I acknowledged having reached the zenith of delight upon our return to Canada. Afterwards Bunny called to share her news.  We both agreed that we haven’t the pretence of prolonging consternation or conclusion. The time is ripe for decision!

The speed of enhancement is unparalleled. We’ve jumped from cooperative custom to unpredicted change where the only constancy is travelling with the current.