This morning I had to walk with my stick up and down three flights of stairs at our condo building because the elevator is not working.  This is but one more annoyance to inconvenience us since our arrival here over a month ago. Our communications with the estate agent distinguish themselves only by their pretence of attention and resolve. It appears increasingly that we are by equal measure disappointed and dissatisfied with both the estate agent Beverly Serral (who paradoxically labels herself and her company “BESTNEST”) and the condo regime. The pattern of dissaffection has regrettably arisen to the point of having to consider what amounts to legal action to resolve the contractual failure and misrepresentation by both the owner and the estate agent on the owner’s behalf. The disruptions have extended to include prolonged failure of laundry devices, mould, absence of pest control, disrepair within the apartment, shabby appearance of certain common elements among others. It has been a descent by increments the resulting paramountcy of which has become insupportable.

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If I were the one planning the voyage I cannot imagine having done a better job of getting me here! New Year’s Day 2022! Let’s face it, I’m damaged goods. In spite of all my youthful violations and extravagances, my erstwhile passion for blended scotch whiskey and latterly frozen vodka martinis, my mid-life passions, cigarettes, cigars and the unpredictable penalties of life, today I was blissfully reclined and entranced upon a foggy beach of the North Atlantic Ocean, one of nature’s most esteemed barrier islands, squinting upwards towards the glimmering white orb, stretching outwards towards the sea upon the sand dunes to relieve my limbs after having cycled 10 kms from Harbour Town. To whom do I owe this incalculable privilege and pleasure! If ever there were a case to be made for divine providence! My own less than astral intervention is hardly the circumspection of my just portion.

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Years ago on Christmas Day, 2010 when we first stepped foot on the beach of Hilton Head Island we hardly imagined we’d be here again on New Year’s Eve, 2021. We’re thrilled to be gassing about it once again!

Christmas Day 2010 Hilton Head Island

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Now I won’t suggest that even Heaven can become tiresome. That would be unforgivably thankless and disgracefully dismissive! But I knew late this morning when I mechanically launched my decomposing carcass into the constitutional bicycle ride, I just might not be up to things.  Indeed after having returned from an earlier administrative attendance at the grocery store and the car wash I willingly succumbed to the craving to dawdle in an easy chair. Soon I was lost in wool-gathering. Upon a sudden awakening moments afterwards my instinct told me to linger longer. Specifically my knee joints were screaming, “Leave me alone!“, they said. But I couldn’t bear the deprivation of the daily routine. Such is the weight of obsession and habit! So off I went upon my bicycle.

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We interrupted our normal schedule this morning to collect provisions and to have the car washed.  Again.  Practically everything here is a repeat of what we did yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that too.  With Low Tide at 11:26 AM today I have the ideal window for cycling on the beach. As I did yesterday. And the day before that. Yet I never tire of the syllabus. Indeed I can think of no better. When we first arrived on Hilton Head Island I genuinely hadn’t anticipated increasing the duration of my daily cycles. But the Fitness record on my iPhone says otherwise. From a start of 6.70 Km on December 2, 2021 it increased the next day to 10.42 Km, rising to 15.52 Km on December 5th and 20.52 Km on December 6th. Yesterday was 19.11 Km and the day before 21.78 Km. While not every day is 20 Km, there is nothing below 10 Km.

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It was easy-breezy today to invoke the urge to cycle. Though I regularly recite that the exertion is purgative, I love it. If I am expiating anything it is the indulgence that for me is cycling. The weather too was copybook perfect! After almost a full month on the Island I have reacquainted myself with former pathways and discovered new ones.  Unquestionably my capacity for distance has diminished from what it was years ago when we were last here. But I have recalculated parts of my regular agenda; and in the process succeeded to heighten the experience. Why it is that I am blessed to cherish bicycling I shall never know.  By comparison I positively hate walking. I have likewise no interest whatsoever in jogging, roller blading or whatever else qualifies as exercise. But give me a decent bicycle and I am rhapsodic!

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Una Mattina is a studio album by Ludovico Einaudi recorded in Milan and released September 6, 2004. Einaudi describes the composition by saying:

If someone asked me about this album, I would say it is a collection of songs linked together by a story. But unlike my other albums, it doesn’t belong to a time in the past. It speaks about me now, my life, the things around me. My piano, which I have nicknamed Tagore, my children Jessica and Leo, the orange kilim carpet that brightens up the living room, the clouds sailing slowly across the sky, the sunlight coming through the window, the music I listen to, the books I read and those I don’t read, my memories, my friends and the people I love.

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The thing about old age – as far as I’m concerned anyway – is that I made it! At 73 years of age anything else – whether poetic or philosophic – is utterly superfluous! This afternoon as I undertook to uplift myself from the sandy beach on which I had contentedly lain for thirty minutes, a passing women shouted, “Are you Okay?” Seemingly my struggle to secure a wobbly left knee sufficiently to balance my carcass had rendered the appearance of awkwardness.  I thought I had been doing quite well. My strategy for standing from the prone position is to contort myself on all fours, then knuckle my way upwards slowly. No doubt it is similar to preserving one’s balance on stilts.  Granted, not what you’d call an artistic tactic but one which I have mastered by repeated effort in my on-going sunbathing exploits.

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It may serve as either an understatement or an overstatement (that is, a trivialization or an exaggeration) to say I have accomplished nothing today. Frankly as I sip my triple espresso here at my desk late afternoon overlooking the golf greens across Lighthouse Lane, assessing the sapor of the day, I judge myself to have been meaningfully engrossed and preoccupied (that is, rapt and passionate). Admittedly those superlatives may not be the credentials warranting endorsement for achievement. The day began however with the allusion of sap. After a more than adequate sleep last evening (when we succumbed to fatigue around nine o’clock and went to bed) I felt obliged to remove my carcass from the lair before 7:00 am this morning. Though the initial enterprise less than stirred me, and I sat upon the edge of the bed mournfully contemplating whether to bury myself again beneath the exceedingly cumbersome duvet, I was overcome by a duty to do something, to go somewhere! Such are the entrails of the Protestant Work Ethic!

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Following what was for me a restless night – contaminated by visions of Tuscsan bread fried in virgin olive oil with pecorino cheese, ham and eggs – the day began uncommonly early. It is Boxing Day and predictably it will be a busy day throughout the Island. The lights of the greens keeper’s tractor shone on the golf course before the sun had risen. If the internet can be trusted Publix and Island Car Wash will open no later than 8:00 am.

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