The truth about wintering in Florida is that, as grand as it is – and I mean that, seriously – one is inevitably drawn back to home territory for what I suppose can safely be called emotional and spiritual rejuvenation. I won’t say the yearning for the homestead is instantaneous; but certainly within a six-month period the capitulation is not uncommon – l’m saying not altogether frequently but by any standard at least regularly. One forgets what may have provoked the urgency to leave home in the first place.

There’s a difference betwixt saving it for the funeral and living the rest of your life like a firecracker. There has to be somewhere in between. Unfortunately the philosophic business of the “via media” or the popular dietary prescription of plant-based foods are not the complete answer either. Indeed the more compelling yet disturbing truth is that unlike fathomless youthful ambition there really isn’t any workable answer. In the result the only practical solution between these competing options is to undertake the immediate determination to capture what arises from the past, what distinguishes the present and what motivates the future. That seems the surest way to cover all the angles while avoiding the mistake of any one. While my happiest conviction is the present there are details from the past that survive to entertain me. I’m obviously less certain about the future but my innate rationality would no doubt have propelled me to say so at any age.

Palm trees by the pool make a unique sound in the mellow afternoon wind. It’s more of a wash and less of a whisper such as through the tall pines in Muskoka at the rocky edge of Grand Island where the mahogany launch lay moored in the copper-coloured boathouse. The pine needles finely cut the wind like the strings of a violin. The palm ferns on Longboat Key sway with the sea. The tossing ferns critically interrupt the penetrating sunlight. The dark shade triggers a tumult of blaze and midnight scattered with points of light. I move to another chaise longue to escape the conflict and restore my dreamy immersion. The orb of white contrasts the layers of azure and green.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.“

Henry David Thoreau, “Walden; or Life in the Woods“

Okay, this is a hard one! So much to say! The account of New Year’s Day is of necessity aligned with an account of New Year’s Eve – the one insinuates the other, affording a sense of recovery both emotional and social and sometimes physical and spiritual. So many things have transpired since 5:00 PM yesterday afternoon – New Year’s Eve – when Diana greeted us at her front door radiant in a midnight blue gown remarkably without competing jewellery, welcoming us to her’s and Ziggy’s cocktail party.

We’re on the outer lip of the seasonal festivities. The week between December 24th and December 31st is first-rate. Though we do nothing traditional on either Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve the entire period is diverting and signal. Nobody can deny the universal absorption in colour and congeniality that overtakes us all. Last night I lingered at the window mesmerized by the shimmering tiny white lights in the swaying fronds of the palm trees by the pool. The prospect of entering the year 2020 is a touch of heaven! The New Year affords the gusto of novelty.

It is natural on a gloomy day when approaching the end of the year to be drawn into remorse. The drizzly mist hangs upon the low ceiling; the dampened buildings and sidewalks are reduced to taupe. The prospect of ending one year and starting another promotes pangs of conscience, a broad reflective disposition perhaps enhanced by an element of reconstruction.

The spirited provocation of youth is undeniable! So is the attraction of reposing by the fire in an armchair. During our evening on St Armands Circle over dinner we spanned the resources of the two seductions. First though we had to find a place to park. Round we drove in search of a spot, through a bank parking lot and round again repeating our exploration, then at last discovering the perfect location – between two driveways suitable for one car only. The night was off to a fortuitous start! We walked noiselessly in the blue evening air along the boulevard, ducking the pendulous viridescent ferns folded against the towering white gates, allowing the enthusiastic young families to pass. It was still only 6:18 pm; we may have arrived ahead of our dining companions. But no! From the front desk of the restaurant we spotted them – looking resplendent – at a corner table! The youngest of the gaggle was quick to approach. She was was sylph-like, the colour of fine porcelain and had the unspoken generosity of her parents. We embraced, hugged and kissed the others, gripped a handshake with the paternal member and the evening was off in a swirl of animation!

Longboat Key is a town in Manatee and Sarasota counties along the central west coast of the U.S. state of Florida, located on and coterminous with the barrier island of the same name. Longboat Key is south of Anna Maria Island between Sarasota Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.

On November 13, 1955 the town was incorporated by a 186–13 vote. At the time only about a third of Longboat Key was developed and roughly 215 people lived on the key. When the town was incorporated it changed its name from Longbeach to Longboat Key.

In the 1960s and 1970s the Arvida corporation purchased the south end of Longboat Key and developed it for $13.5 million. President Bush had arrived on Longboat Key on September 10, 2001 the day before the September 11 Attacks to read to second graders in a campaign at the Emma E. Booker School in Sarasota. On November 14, 2015 the town of Longboat Key celebrated its 60-year anniversary.

On February 1, 1958, the name of the Longbeach post office was changed to Longboat Key. 

The median income for a household in the town was $290,251, and the median income for a family was $307,983. Males had a median income of $261,157 versus $230,104 for females. The per capita income for the town was $280,963. 

The upcoming 2020 presidential election in the United States of America hasn’t as much to do with getting rid of Trump as it does with changing the face of America. And I don’t mean the colour – red or blue. The historic money-grubbing theme which has predominated political argument is being replaced by what the so-called conservative Republicans would prefer to abrade as socialism but what Americans of every stripe have recognized as humanitarian – health care, climate change, energy alternatives, employment fairness, equality between men and women, toleration of sexual diversity and gun control.