It hasn’t been often this past season that we’ve had a cloudy day or stormy weather. Today is a rare exception. I have to say it is a welcome interlude from what otherwise has been an unabated compulsion to expose my wasting carcass (as far as cosmetically allowable) to the burnishing rays of the sun from within the cloudless azure sky.

“Stormy Weather” is a 1933 song written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler. Ethel Waters first sang it at The Cotton Club night club in Harlem in 1933 and recorded it that year, and in the same year it was sung in London by Elisabeth Welch and recorded by Frances Langford. The song has since been performed by artists as diverse as Frank Sinatra, Etta James, Dinah Washington, Clodagh Rodgers, and Reigning Sound and most famously by Lena Horne and Billie Holiday.

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By an entirely unanticipated fortuity this uncommonly cloudy morning I lingered at my makeshift writing desk on the ground floor of our townhouse in Buttonwood Bay sufficiently long to buckle down to a scintillating email from a former law school colleague (now practicing law in Paris) in addition to the composition of an improvised postulation about the shades of etiquette à propos the poolside itinerant here on Key Largo. As though to punctuate the chance and capital of the window, we soon thereafter launched our projected errand to the local grocery store to replenish the larder during the process of which we passed a sign on the highway announcing in modest white letters on a bright green background “Key Largo”. I instantly gushed with awe as I once again, for the umpteenth time no doubt, recalled what indescribable favour it is to recognize this palpable achievement; viz., having succeeded after escape from the pandemic and literally months of hopeful ambition to fulfill the goal of wintering on the Florida Keys. It has thus far been a record of indolence, complemented today by the commensurately idle recognition of the Spinn Espresso Maker (thanks to DD who has proven himself an invaluable resource of intelligence, social vibrancy and unmitigated humour).

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What follows is an email from Daniel A. Laprès, a former housemate of mine at Dalhousie Law School in Halifax, Nova Scotia in the early 1970s.

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Due in part to my current physical immobility (as I await scheduled knee surgery) and in part to  my intentional (and admittedly curmudgeonly) removal from all but my most desirous social conventions, the extent of my society at Buttonwood Bay on Key Largo has been predominantly confined to poolside fraternity. When we arrived here 4½ months ago even those acquaintances were infrequent as there were often but 3 – 5 people gathered about the pool at any one time. Lately however the frequency of community has increased exponentially and as a result the acuteness of polite protocol has been accentuated.

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“But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?”

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The act of rotating has many connotations, the most signal of which is turning one side for another. It may also define succession, sequence or cycle. In the extant context of sunbathing by the pool the paramount definition of rotating is the alteration of one platform of radiance for another; specifically front to back or vice versa. It is slight acclaim to poolside athleticism but nonetheless imperative if one were to approach the undertaking diligently. And be assured there are those who do.

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In this era of the “Big Lie” and the rampant political and ethical righteousness pertaining thereto, there has curiously survived a debate surrounding the propriety of telling the truth. This apparently for a myriad of reasons. Initially however this resounds a peculiar observation as one would normally react almost instinctively by asserting that telling the truth is foremost imperative without equivocation.

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Though I felt less than heavenly upon awakening this morning (following a night of irksome recollections, ineffable dreams and fitful neuropathy) it wasn’t long before I regained my spiritual wonder. It is quite impossible not to react favourably to the day, almost any day, on Key Largo. Everything about our presence here is manifestly agreeable; viz., the weather, the temperature, the turquoise sea, the azure sky and the aimless ambition. Effulgent balminess. It all bears repeating only because it is by nature so superbly topical and immediate, so incomparably transcendental. And memorable. I am determined to jot a note of these daily inspirations. For the time may yet come when I am no longer capable to relish them in the identical context; though I may at least preserve a colourful souvenir of the day.

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Since E. M. Forster’s novel (1908)  “A Room with a View” people have questioned the significance of a yearning for a view.

The novel opens in Florence with the women complaining about their rooms at the Pensione Bertolini. They were promised rooms with a view of the River Arno but instead have ones overlooking a drab courtyard. Another guest, Mr Emerson, interrupts their “peevish wrangling” by spontaneously offering to swap rooms. He and his son, George, both have rooms with views of the Arno, and he argues, “Women like looking at a view; men don’t.” Charlotte rejects the offer, partly because she looks down on the Emersons’ unconventional behaviour and because she fears it would place them under an “unseemly obligation”. However, another guest, Mr Beebe, an Anglican clergyman, persuades Charlotte to accept the offer; Charlotte suggests that the Emersons are socialists.

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Can’t recall precisely when I began having my nails professionally attended. It was not something I particularly warmed to, given the environment normally involved women only. I accordingly felt to be an odd interloper; and those hanging colour palettes were always a drawback. That vernacular has changed somewhat over the past decade but a nail salon is still predominantly filled with women. Now I go because I have to; so the issue of being compatible with the salon is irrelevant.  For me it is no longer comfortable having to deal with either my fingernails or toenails on my own at home because I am obstructed by the prescriptions of acuity of vision and physical prowess; that is, I have trouble seeing what I am doing or getting where I am going. Like many other declensions of old age I now happily accommodate them without embarrassment or apology. A regular visit to the nail salon for a mani/pedi is on my routine to-do list.

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