The reminiscence of our home territory in the Town of Mississippi Mills in the County of Lanark and Province of Ontario is neither doleful nor saccharin. But until today it most certainly hasn’t been either regular or frequent. We moved our principal residence in Almonte on the morning of Wednesday, November 2nd last to a new apartment across town then immediately left for Key Largo, Florida where we are now secluded until the remainder of the winter. As you might imagine our personal possessions were jettisoned into the new apartment and effectively abandoned in their crates unopened. There is a good deal to do upon our return home at the end of April.

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With the remedial light of day it is strangely unmanageable to recall the focus of last evening’s disagreement – as heated and intuitive as it was at the time. Indeed so sparse are the intricacies of the erstwhile disharmony that I am equally embarrassed by the scope of the row as by my failure to recollect either its particulars or its condition precedent.

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As I lounged by the pool today, feeling the potency of the blazing white sun, I was overcome by the compulsion to report to the sea for duty. It had been since late last November or perhaps early December since I had swum in the sea. I was noticeably feeling the want of salt sea water and the memory of its singular buoyancy. The declining ambient temperature has temporarily estranged me from the sea though in the interim I have regularly contrived the scope of my return. Already the daily temperature has begun to climb. The high today was 74°F; and without any wind it felt warmer.  I am counting upon the sun to warm the sea to its historic tepidness.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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)

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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”.

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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

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