I got a haircut today.  Better I should have said to the stylist, “Do what you can to fix this!” I’m never overly optimistic about the success of my haircuts. After decades of getting haircuts I have learned the truth of the diminishing quip, “The only difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut is two days.”  And that further remark about having a “bad hair day”. It’s as reliable as the opposite, a so-called “good hair day”. Which no one ever bothers to mention – those occasions when one seems inexplicably at peace with one’s morning image in the mirror after a shower and straightening oneself to begin a new day.

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In the summer of 1976 I began practicing law in the Town of Almonte with Messrs. Galligan and Sheffield Barrs &c. I was the new guy on the block. It was about that time I first met Cindy Edmonds, then a young legal assistant at the office of Paul D. Courtice LLB in nearby Town of Carleton Place. Cindy and a number of other legal types (lawyers and legal assistants) had invited me to join them for a beer and munchies at a popular pub overlooking the Mississippi River. Though my memory is not perfectly clear, my recollection of the entire congregation is predominantly Cindy’s captivating sense of humour (something which to this day she has thankfully never abandoned). It would however require a year or two before I became acquainted with Cindy’s more celebrated stamp as an expert legal assistant.

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The idiom how’s it going is another way to say how are you, how are things progressing, or what’s up. The it can refer to life in general, a project, or your day.

It should be noted that this idiom is said in many countries with the answer expected to be fine or good. This is not usually what a person says when he or she truly wants details of your life or day. Often this is said as a continuation of the greeting (e.g., Hi, how’s it going?), and the return answer should also be a continuation (e.g., Good, see you later.)

If the speaker wants further details, he or she will ask again or make it understood by intonation or facial expressions.

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Whether John Rambo, Marlon Brandon, Robert De Niro,  Leonardo DiCaprio, Al Pacino, Enrico Caruso or Michelangelo, they are all artists who, by the exposition of their extraordinary talent, entertain and uplift our daily repetitive and predominantly unglamorous lives. Humanity, I am afraid to say, when scrutinized from anything but the most abstract astronomical distance, is generally mildly unsettling and rough going, the live birth from the womb, explosions of elemental ingredients during adolescence, development of uncomfortable bearings, attitudes and ticks during seniority and finally the incremental and irreversible decomposition of old age. In short, not a pretty picture overall from beginning to end.  But art changes all that, art in the thespian variant, art hanging on the walls or rendered in sculpture, photography, music, poetry, furnishings, rugs and clocks, glasswork, crystal, ceramic, porcelain and brass, jewellery, weaving, even handmade or plastic flowers.

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It isn’t often lately we’ve had a rainy day. This afternoon as I motored along the Appleton Side Road and onto the 4-lane ribbon of highway leading to Stittsville – my customary outing for a drive and a car wash – I marvelled at the unique features of the drizzly day. The mist had settled like a vignette upon the surrounding landscape. The roads glistened in the gentle rain forming a mirrored pathway before me. The adjacent grass and corn fields were uncommonly green and lush. The inspirational music of German classical pianist Florian Christl corresponded appropriately to my lingering consumption of mandatory Sunday music. Even the cars behind me held back a discrete distance and, like I, appeared to be in no hurry. Escaping the urgent traffic of the business week afforded a welcome privacy and calm.

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The closest assembly I know to a spartan sentience is that acquainted from time to time with an abstemious lifestyle. In my case this rare crusade is invariably a calculated translation from past indulgences to future deprivation with an eye to purifying recovery, indeed one resembling nascent sanctity. Granted the underlying theme of such alteration is normally ascetic compared to the historic or current framework which is more suitable I suppose in the minds of some to that of a philistine. It is nonetheless a qualified familiarity with the stark and uncomfortable mode of dispossession.  In point of fact, I oddly adopt the rigid conformity as a form of opulence even though it may carry the hallmarks of simplicity and plainness. Rather like the lucidity of a fine Cognac. There is admittedly a degree of rigour involved but nothing approaching what I would call discomfort or hair-shirt. It is predominantly a stern disposition – though plainly humble. Indeed the settlement upon this posture is one which by its element of frugality succeeds to filter life’s myriad of choices, rather akin to reduction of a vinaigrette to unsullied ingredients characterized by freshness like raw basil, extra virgin olive oil and apple cider vinegar.

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The native attraction to one’s children or grandchildren – or, in our case, to one’s nieces and nephews – has an ineffable allure.  Obviously the salient feature of notice is youth.  This artistic conglomerate of springtime and salad days in turn invites a limitless capital of imagination and possibility. And there’s the ubiquitous question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

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I’ve heard it said that we’re the last to see ourselves as we truly are – or as others do – or words to that effect. Something about confusing appearances and underlying intention, as though we operate on two levels, one being a suggestive or intellectual level of preferred character while underneath in the undisguised realm and reign of animal instinct things are different. I am not saying there is anything deliberately iniquitous about one’s conduct, just that supposedly what we imagine we’re projecting and what we’re actually doing are often different – at least from the perspective of others.

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Reassessing everything, putting the leaden sculpture of midnight sleeplessness in order. Rearranging the sequence. Rewriting the imperatives. Establishing new boundaries reflecting elemental change, childhood to orphan. Withdrawing so as to permit orbital abstraction, a diminished summary of decades. Percolating pictures of the past, clarity touching mere passing moments which yet purvey brilliant memories. Like a polished vase it contains the inexpressible history of a second of time.

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August 17, 2018

Grandad would have been 100 today. He died in 2014 in an awful hospital style bed at a veterans care facility with me and Charlotte by his side. He was a very special man with a unique outlook on the world. He went through WWII including being shot down and spending hours clinging to a dingy in the North sea. Despite that, he was always cheerful but with a “no nonsense” attitude. He once told me there are too many depressed people in the world and also that the “world is in chaos” when he’d watch the news much later in life. He had great integrity and practicality that seems lacking today. Aside from all his Air Force accolades, he was a great Grandparent, teaching us about vegetable gardening (he had a plot of land that is now an underpass in Bells Corners) and we sold pumpkins in our neighborhood every year. He always drove me to riding lessons and shows, always ready to help sweep or carry tack. His speeches around the dinner table during holidays we came to expect are missed. As is his sense of humour and little sayings and sage advice about life. One thing that stuck with me was “not all flowers bloom at the same time” in response to me feeling down about being at a certain place in my life. If you still have your grandparents and are on good terms make sure you sit down with them and listen. They have everything to teach you.

Jennifer C Hladkowicz
Orange Horse Studio
(613) 371-0614
site: www.orangehorsestudio.com