Capitulation, as I am sure you will appreciate, is one of those words which, while not so much a “double-edged sword”, is nonetheless replete with both soft and sharp innuendo. It may suggest discreditable behaviour; or, it may suggest willingness to cooperate. Capitulation is not merely the action of surrendering. Significantly it is also ceasing to resist an opponent or demand. I further think it is fair to observe that most of us in this spicy affair called life have encountered both people and emotions which constitute opponents or demands. While it appears to infect the veneer to say as much, I believe there are times when ceasing to resist (or giving into) an opponent or demand is an intelligent choice.  It is to my mind more favourable than the action of surrendering because the latter concedes defeat while the former invites community. And until they invent a better method of living than sociability, I’ll place my bets on “ceasing to resist” as a palatable capitulation. I feel it amounts to more than throwing in the towel when things become uncomfortable.

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It’s easy to disparage change, to mock or belittle its worth as either unlikely or so predictable or repetitive as to be wholly unmerited. Yet as scornful as some may be about the prospect of change, it nonetheless inhabits an imperturbable strain of our personality. I acknowledge the adage, “there ain’t no ship to take you away from yourself, you travel the suburbs of your own mind“. But that penetrating insight does not succeed to impugn the elevation and excitement of impending movement and discovery.

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Imagination – so I have heard – is not a particularly bad thing. That is, if it doesn’t overtake one’s daily enterprise like a high school student’s first gushing love affair which these days is further complicated by a list of multiple abbreviated sexual preferences. I guess I have always associated imagination with some kind of removal from reality, a wistful hope for something different, an anxious yearning for transition, denial or alteration. Yet there are many things about which I have employed my imagination without in my opinion compromising connection with the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.

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My late father was an aircraft pilot. He belonged to the Royal Canadian Air Force throughout much of his career (starting as Commanding Officer of CFB Greenwood in Nova Scotia) before becoming a military attaché to the Canadian Embassies in Washington DC, Stockholm, Sweden and Helsinki, Finland. While it can undoubtedly be postulated that the diplomatic missions were considered perquisites within Canadian government circles,  I am equally certain my father never lost sight of the incredible rush of adrenaline, composition and docility associated with the management of such a massive machine as an airplane. I am guessing as well that in later life he translated that sudden thrill to the lift-off of a fine motor vehicle.

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Often I have amusingly pondered what constitutes the difference between gentlemen of this era and gentlemen of another; what, that is, distinguishes men in the so-called evolution of humanity? Surely, for example, if one were to peel back whatever it is that now marks our elemental character we are predominantly the same as we perhaps always were. I can’t imagine that proper dental care, a modern haircut or a new suit of clothes (with or without buckled high-heel shoes and pointy toes) are going to make anything but a cosmetic distinction.

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We’ve now surpassed the 1st day of September. The weather has turned cool. In the chilly morning air, cotton sweaters are de rigueur. The sharp squawk of the Bluejays and the shrill scream of the cicadas regularly punctuate the atmosphere. The vast green corn fields stand high, golden tassel crowns gleaming in the sunshine row on row. No doubt youngsters are planning whatever peculiar devotions they naturally have as they contemplate another year of studies and companionship, perhaps at a high school. Though I delight in their zeal, nothing however persuades me to repeat the exigencies of youth. I am shamefully complacent.

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We awoke this morning at 5:30 am in preparation for an out-patient appointment at the Arnprior & District Memorial Hospital on John St N. If that early morning congress were not enough to disrupt a normal day we afterwards did so indisputably. As a celebratory reward for our abrupt communion with the real world we bought two pieces of signature carrot cake from the Tea & Cake restaurant on Bridge Street in Almonte. Okay, yes, at home we added a bit more for starters; some delicious baked flatbread with select toppings. So we made a complete meal out of it.  And there was coffee afterwards. But the dessert was the killer!

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This subject of comfort and succour reminds me of Sonnet 43 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning,  “How do I love thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 -1861)

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While poking along today like an old fogey with my stick into the grocery store I encountered a young fellow whom I hadn’t seen – except coincidentally several times walking on the sidewalk while I was driving – for quite some time, about 5 years ago we figure.  When I asked him repeatedly, “What are you doing these days?” he as often ignored the enquiry and seemed intent upon moving onto another less intrusive topic of conversation like our health or the weather. It finally became apparent that he was doing nothing and that he was having a hard time of it. This was disappointing for me as well because the last time we had talked with him he was cheerfully reporting involvement in something promising.

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Talk about rain!  For the past couple of weeks we’ve experienced a shifting canvass of not only horridly hot, humid sunny days but also brilliantly cool, arid autumnal weather preceding torrential rains, rain which punishes the apartment windows, rain which drives hard upon the car windshield amid the mist and fog, rain which blusters the sheers and saturates the air, rain that glistens the roadways and parking lots, rain which cloaks the verdant fields revealing sparkling emerald gems.

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