The last leg of our homeward bound journey today from Hilton Head Island, SC was from Cortland, NY which is only a couple of hours from the Canadian border. Knowing that, we lingered this morning over breakfast at the hotel. We were chuffed upon leaving the hotel to drive into dazzling yellow sunshine surrounded by clear blue sky. The ribbon of highway through upstate New York to the border was a delight to drive. The scenery throughout is paramountly rural, vast hillsides and open fields, seemingly uninhabited and remote.

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When we left Hampton Inn in Hagerstown, Maryland around 7:30 am after our complimentary breakfast of porridge, banana, strawberry yoghurt, plain bagel (with butter and peanut butter), cheese omelet, sausage patties, honey glazed donuts and coffee the morning sky had begun to awaken and heralded a clear and bright day for the 4-hour drive through the mountains to Cortland, New York.

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Two Buttermilk Pancakes n’ butter served with two eggs* and a sampling of Thick-Sliced Bacon, Smoked Sausage and Sugar Cured or Country Ham. Served with Fried Apples or Hashbrown Casserole (170/190 cal) and 100% Pure Natural Syrup.

After putting on the nose bag at Cracker Barrel Old Country Store in Christiansburg, Virginia late this morning we were ready for a nap.  We had waited about 40 minutes to be seated.  The place was packed! But we hadn’t any misgivings about the delay.  In fact we profited by the wait by going across the street to fill the car with gas. It was initially too cool to sit outside the restaurant in one of the many rocking chairs so we spent the remainder of our waiting time browsing the huge collection of preposterous gifts, clothing and sweets like pecan clusters, sugared popcorn and fudge.

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The Carnegie Hotel in Johnson City, Tennessee was our first overnight stop on the way home to Canada from South Carolina. We’ve stayed there before.  We booked dinner in the hotel’s Wellington restaurant. General John T. Wilder, the builder in 1891 of the original hotel which, after it burned to the ground, rose from the ashes in today’s replica Art Deco manifestation, would no doubt have approved of our custom. The sweet after the evening meal was a lavender crème brûlée, a signature item on the menu proscribed by first come, first serve. Our eager waitress skilfully protected our interest by invoking that well known device of broaching the subject of dessert before embracing the lesser matter of hors d’oeuvres.  In fairness she may have first enquired about a restorative cocktail but we years ago rid ourselves of that complication.

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Our beezer breakfast this morning at Lowcountry Produce Market & Café was interrupted – albeit at the exact moment we were preparing to leave the restaurant – by a telephone call from a singularly pleasant and accommodating representative of Bell Canada.  Last evening I had sent a fretful email to the representative (Linda – EY55318 Bell Customer Service) complaining once again about an unwarranted data charge on our account. This annoyance has I regret to say repeated annually more often than I care to recall upon our transition for the winter from Canada (Bell Canada) to the United States of America (AT&T or Telus). If it were not for my obsessiveness I am certain the trifling though nefarious charges would go entirely unnoticed. It infuriates me to dismiss out-of-hand even such petty oversight as ten or twenty dollars by a huge corporation such as Bell Canada – especially as we have had to endure this irritation year after year. Though out of a sense of judgement I attempt to diminish my preoccupation with the abuse – arguing within myself that it is of small consequence in the broader scheme of things – I cannot resist at least recording my objection.

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Photography is of late a revitalized hobby of mine.  As a young man I toyed with photography on an Agfa Silette-LK 35 mm camera; and, later thinking my skill might improve with a more expensive Nikon camera – which it did not – I flirted in that mechanical depth. But it was only when I unwittingly discovered the “edit” feature of the iPhone camera that the compulsion took hold. Subject to obvious constraints I consider photography a matter of self-expression.  The amateur interest may not qualify as artistic but it is more than just snapping a shutter. Everybody knows the quip about the two ways of looking at things; viz., the glass half-empty or the glass half-full. When it comes to photography – which I consider reflective of the way people view things in life – the image in my opinion is less a matter of philosophy and more a matter of phrenology.

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It was a truncated but trenchant bicycle ride today.  Across Lighthouse Lane to Plantation Drive then down Heritage Road and Old Military Road around the inlet to S Sea Pines Drive back through the golf club past the wavering sea grasses and Palmetto ferns towards home. The 8.39 km jaunt was just enough to expiate our guilt; enough to soften the angst; enough to capture a final blink.  We leave in two days. Our luggage is mainly packed and already stowed. The remaining necessities are a minimum. The ‘fridge is nigh on empty. We’ve made plans for our concluding breakfast at nearby Lowcountry Produce Market and Café wither we’ll take our last bicycle ride through the towering sea pines. Our dinner on the eve of our departure – as it was on the eve of our arrival 4½ months ago – will be grâce à la cuisine of the chef at the club house. It’s time to say farewell to Hilton Head Island for another season!

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The incontrovertible relief of a quiet moment is for me not entirely uncommon. Nor must I confess is it by any account routine. Perhaps the uniqueness of a quiet moment is part of its allure. I haven’t come near to triggering a quiet moment on command (though maybe I should if I were to remain au courant or preserve my chakra).  For the time being however a quiet moment is an accident.  Often it is merely the vacuum that follows a prior absorption, the fruition of the completion of a focus or duty, occasionally the rainbow after the rain.

The concept of the chakra arose in the early traditions of Hinduism. Beliefs differ between the Indian religions, with many Buddhist texts consistently mentioning five chakras, while Hindu sources reference six or seven. Early Sanskrit texts speak of them both as meditative visualizations combining flowers and mantras and as physical entities in the body. Within Kundalini yoga, the techniques of breathing exercises, visualizations, mudras, bandhas, kriyas, and mantras are focused on manipulating the flow of subtle energy through chakras.

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Most of us have a lot going on in our lives at any one time – at least doing and planning things we either prefer or must do – like vacations and going to work. As a result we sometimes overlook doing and planning the things that aren’t on our immediate agenda.  While we think nothing of going grocery shopping to prepare our meals, we are less inclined to accommodate provisions for less compelling matters.

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Youth!  Make no mistake – being young at heart doesn’t cut it! Youth is like money and things, you can’t have both. Most people with whom I now associate are old; and some of them have a lot of money. Which is to say, they’re not young. In the elevator it’s an elderly woman with platinum dyed blonde hair closely resembling a wig, her face wrinkled beneath cosmetic; she shares a pleasant greeting sharpened by a disparaging comment about spring cleaning.  On the telephone it’s a chap I have known for over forty years, a man with a persistent stutter; a mere glance at our past is instantly enriched with one thousand images of business, contracts and meetings. With whomever I communicate by email we’re certain to be of an age, perhaps friends or just acquaintances but not my physician, accountant or financial advisor all of whom are much younger than I (their predecessors and my former confidants having retired). Even swimming in the pool the athletic swimmer – a stranger- told me he was 76 years of age and a former hockey player so ancient I recollected the names of other players. The predominance of people I pass on the bicycle path and with whom I share a cheery greeting are gray haired and bent. The fellow in the parking lot, another interloper newly arrived, is thin and tall. And old.

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