It was a relief to get out of bed this morning shortly before 8:30 am.  A Sunday morning. I hadn’t the intention to go to church. Or anywhere else for that matter. When lately reflecting upon what I have done over the past decade to amuse myself whether in Canada or the United States of America it has been a monotonous affair. I say that with reservation because the monotony is by most standards a passably acceptable one, celebrating as it does the sometimes magical environments of riparian vistas or along roadways and seas in subtropical climates. Assessing oneself in these terms is both cheering and detracting. Clearly one mustn’t complain of the monotony of having to cycle for miles upon an open beach adjacent the Atlantic Ocean; or having to endure 80°F temperature while rolling upon a sheltered pathway overlooking Florida Bay or swimming in the sea.

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The impenetrable draw of the sea! There are days (albeit few of them) when I can roll by the sea on my tricycle without so much as a casual sideways glance. And then there are others such as today when an elusive magnetism fastens me to it! Nonetheless I succeeded to fulfill my cycling ambition of 5.47 Kms before succumbing to the more leisurely sport of floating on my back upon the emerald sea. After rounding the parish by the least elevated route, I turned onto the white gravel pathway towards the beach then stationed my tricycle next to the sign prohibiting golf carts beyond that point.

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Initially – that is, from the moment of our birth – we stare at the world about us. This is an obvious state.

from Latin obvius “that is in the way, presenting itself readily, open, exposed, commonplace,” from obviam (adv.) “in the way,” from ob “in front of, against”

This predominantly absorptive characteristic is later combined with and manifested in an expressive way of looking at the world about us; for example, musically, theatrically, comically, scientifically, naturally, arithmetically, legally, artistically, etc. When a particular manner of regarding the world overtakes us (as it normally does no matter how eclectic we may imagine ourselves to be) we develop what becomes identified as our peculiar perspective of the world. This in turn traditionally translates to what is an algorithmic identity; that is, a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing some end.

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Today was another run-of-the-mill day in the local borough; viz., morning ablutions, breakfast, poring over the overnight email, grocery shopping, cycling, sunbathing and swimming. When one such as I has a finite daily syllabus it is at times discomfiting to have nothing remarkable to report. It was however notable today that my tricycle added a moment of rarity to an otherwise mundane curriculum. By way of introduction to this novel circumstance, thanks to my brother-in-law Edward Marion Hladkowicz – aka, Keeper of the Family Antiquities – I coincidentally received from him the attached faded photograph of my late father C. G. William Chapman DSO giving his best shot at the propulsion of an equally dim tricycle. Then by happenstance this afternoon when I was fulfilling my statutory 5.13 Kms about the parish, I was approached by a woman of an age who said, pointing to my tricycle, “Do you mind if I ask where you got that?”

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“Observe, however, that of man’s whole terrestrial possessions and attainments, unspeakably the noblest are his Symbols, divine or divine-seeming; under which he marches and fights, with victorious assurance, in this life-battle: what we can call his Realised Ideals.”

Excerpt From
The French Revolution
Thomas Carlyle

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Not every day on Key Largo is abuzz with fieriness. Today was one such day. It was instead characterized by an uncertain platitude if I may call it that. Yet it would be misleading to propose that today ought to have been otherwise or that the day was in any material respect wanting. Most certainly it was not. I liken the day instead to a commonplace work day; that is, attending to business, getting things done. Granted this is a small compliment given my present circumstances which on the face oblige me to no more employment than slicing my apple for breakfast and afterwards deciding whether to swim in the pool or in the sea, whether to float face up or face down, whether to cycle 4 or 8 Kms (I actually did 6.86 Kms) and whether to have a half or a whole squeezed lemon with my afternoon chilled tea.

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WISHY-WASHY
Any beverage too weak. Over-watered spirits.

“His food the land-crab, lizard, or the frog;
His drink a wish-wash of six-water grog.”

Excerpt From
The Sailor’s Word-Book: An alphabetical digest of nautical terms, including some more especially military and scientific, but useful to seamen; as well as archaisms of early voyagers, etc.

By the late
Admiral W. H. Smyth, K.S.F., D.C.L., &c.
Revised for the press by Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Belcher, K.C.B., &c. &c.

LONDON:
BLACKIE AND SON, PATERNOSTER ROW;
AND GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH
1867

Lucem Libris Disseminamus

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For reasons I do not fully understand (except bluntly to control those who may surreptitiously infiltrate the gated community) we have been told by the estate agency to have any delivery directed to the office of the estate agent rather than directly to ourselves at the townhouse. It is both an inconvenience and a convenience because while having to persistently track the delivery to the estate agency we are spared the insufferable obligation to remain in the townhouse all day awaiting the doorbell to ring (assuming one must sign for receipt).

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Forgive me if you will the reporting of what is nothing but trifling details. It would please me rather to engage in the account of something of moment and interest. And while I don’t personally think that apart from Donald J. Trump and Thomas Babington Macaulay’s History of England from the Accession of James II there is anything which so intrinsically captures the mind of those who are innately inquisitive I accept that my biographical tedium is unlikely competition. Having said that the dreary enterprise evokes within me what is the substantive function of this amateur literary medium; that is, to fulfill my obligation to do so. Now I know that is turning the conversation on its head – rather like what my dear late mother sometimes said, “Because I say so!” – but quite honestly it abbreviates any other more dynamic explanation.

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While lying in bed this morning following an uncommonly profitable overnight sleep and while listening to the equally uncommon rain upon the roof of the townhouse, I fashioned a new elucidation of the quip “Why did the chicken cross the road?”  I am that chicken, the coward, the one without the nerve to undertake a dangerous situation.

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