There are few admonitions more tranquillizing than to be told you should have known better. Normally it is a reprimand delivered by an older to a younger person such as from a parent to a child. I am discovering however that the warning applies equally to the aged as to the young. The bald truth is that being over 65 years of age doesn’t mean one is a graduate of life’s pitfalls. Old age in spite of its silvery glamour and Epicurean likeness is as fraught with hazard of judgement as is youth.
After three weeks into 2023 the gush of New Year’s Eve is now safely considered historical. We’re about the middle of January and the middle of the week. A noticeable lull has come over the island. The early morning traffic when I went for my mani/pedi was more contained than usual; the southern drivers with few exceptions seemed more subdued. My manicurist Sun from Vietnam informed me that this coming Sunday is the Asian new year, what appears on my iPhone calendar as the Lunar New Year. The animal for the lunar year is the Rabbit. It’s all a bunch of hocus-pocus in my opinion but Sun became animated to the extent of determining that based upon my year of birth my zodiac animal is the rat which purportedly foretells that I am ingenious but unadventurous. She made other general observations about the lunar year including the use of the zodiac to predict a successful marriage.
There are two postures I prefer to avoid when I am by or in the pool; namely, tanning my backside and swimming the backstroke. Curiously each reverses the direction of vision of the other. The common issue has however nothing to do with perspective; nor does it involve a more lofty ingredient of comportment. The matter is solely confined to the modest features of comfort and ease.
Winter is over! Today following a 3-day interlude of featureless grey clouds and blustery northern winds during which I wore a jacket and white socks while tricycling and avoided swimming in either the pool or the sea, the ambient temperature beneath clear blue sky rose from a frigid 53ºF this morning to a tolerable 69ºF by mid-afternoon. Poolside (where the sheltered air was warmer still) we lounged in the glaring yellow sunshine inhibited only by bathing suits and sunscreen. As my late mother (God bless her) was wont to observe, “What’s not to like!!” It was a declarative statement, nothing interrogatory about it. Today I find myself soaring to a similar disposition; what Bertie Wooster gleefully described as boomps-a-daisy.
One ruffian escaped because no prosecutor dared to appear. Another declared that he had armed himself in conformity to the orders of his spiritual guide and to the example of many persons of higher station than himself, whom he saw at that moment in Court. Two only of the Merry Boys, as they were called, were convicted: the worst criminals escaped; and the Chief justice indignantly told the jurymen that the guilt of the public ruin lay at their door.
Excerpt From
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800 – 1859),
“The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 3 (1689 – 1702)
Something celestial is there about a salty breeze ripping across the turquoise sea surrounding the Florida Keys on a breathtakingly clear and dry, sunny day. The empyrean vault over the slender peninsula of white coral reef that is the backbone of the Florida keys magnified the blessedly fresh air of the blustery wind today. I am so pleased to have vanquished my morning indolence at table amid large (and exceedingly welcome) cups of strong black coffee and (likewise divine) fattened portions of Everything bagel with cream cheese and lox while fixedly poring over the latest discombobulation of Apple and all things “i”.
Mentor: A person, especially an experienced older person, who provides personal or professional guidance.
“A mentor who, because he is detached and disinterested, can hold up a mirror to us.” P. W. Keve
Early this morning a long-standing friend from Toronto, Ontario (Canada) emailed me to quip (at my expense) about my nonstop reference here on Key Largo, Florida (USA) to what she suggested I call the “azure sky and golden sunshine”. She was right to do so. I crawl in response to the asseveration. Today was another such day; viz., clear blue sky and burnishing yellow rays.
It is said that the seasoned traveller is he who, in the face of unanticipated difficulty, while perhaps not rising above it, can nonetheless take it in his stride. The implication being that when travelling stuff happens; and that the most quick-witted among us learns how to step around it or through it without being miffed. Rather like the way we’d prefer to imagine living the most productive life if you will.
The day started passably well. Although I had gone to bed approaching midnight last evening, I surprised myself this morning to remove of a sudden my sleep mask only minutes after 8:00 o’clock. These days I consider that a respectable hour to awaken. As I lay momentarily inert under the duvet, adjusting to the brightness of the yellow bedroom and the critical reality of another day, wondering whether I would reposition the sleep mask over my eyes, I could see through the bottom of the window blind that it was a sunny day. I set upon getting up. The elevation of my corpulent body was not without its effort. These days nothing is without its effort. Everything creaks and strains under the most inconsequential motivation.