Normally I relish a Saturday because of its historic association with freedom, an escape from mandatory routine.  As regularly it heralds the performance of unusual and highly personal activity, like having breakfast at the golf club or shopping for something special. Even though there is now little difference between Saturday or any other day of the week, the festive nature of day persists and frankly I do what I can to preserve it. It is possible that one is tainted by the buoyancy of others who celebrate the liberty but once a week.

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We arrived on Hilton Head Island, SC on November 5, 2016.  Prior to our arrival we had made enquiries about the effects of Hurricane Matthew which struck in early October, 2016. Our estate agent confirmed that it was safe to come to the Island and that our accommodation was in good order.  While those observations were true, it was apparent upon our arrival that the Island was in the throes of recovery from the storm.  We were informed that a tornado had passed through Sea Pines (which is the area in which we reside) and we later discovered what was evidently the path of destruction wrought by the tornado, a corridor of downed trees. Apart from that however the only evidence of the hurricane was the slash collected at the sides of roads and the on-going procedures to reconstruct the face of the beach in several places.

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Many times over the past several years during our winter sojourn on Hilton Head Island I have marvelled at what I believe to be the incredible fortuity and bounty of the experience. No doubt others feel equally blessed though in different circumstances. I won’t bother with either comparisons or alternatives, that’s just not realistic. Eventually you have to accept where you are or else find yourself in a perpetual state of quandary, turmoil and agitation. I have succumbed to the admission that things don’t get much better than this!  And – just to be clear – I include in that assessment my time in Canada for the rest of the year, specifically Mississippi Mills which is as close to a place called home that this vagabond shall ever know.

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A reluctant, less than keen start to the day did not however inhibit the remainder.  While I won’t say it was a grind, getting through breakfast was mechanical. Under such circumstances, mindless habit pays off – fresh fruit as usual, ham slices, fried egg, sliced cherry tomatoes, green pepper chunks and Stilton cheese.  Black coffee naturally.

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The thermostat in my bedroom this morning at 7:30 am recorded 54℉.  I had slept with the balcony door open a crack last night (and my bedroom door closed to insulate me from the rest of the condominium). As inclined as I was to remain in bed and bury myself beneath the duvet – it was after all Sunday morning – I also warmed to the idea of going out for breakfast. Normally we do that on the weekend; and we usually get going soon after eight o’clock.  Besides I could see through the diaphanous draperies that it promised to be a sunny day and that alone encouraged me. All these circumstances combined to advance a very deliberate attack upon the morning ablutions.

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Over coffee this morning, alone at the dining room table, I sat inert staring out the picture windows onto a cheerless grey scene. A thin ribbon of white sugar rimmed the Ocean. I had languished in bed until after ten o’clock. My slumber was so complete that it required a moment to recover my wits. I have lately been released of an adhesive anxiety. As a result I willingly lapse into complacent dormancy at the least opportunity. Whatever the mainspring of this soothing restfulness it is an uncommon state, mildly liberating.  I cannot imagine what in particular may have changed. Perhaps it is an imperceptible adjustment to my hardened thoughts, dissolving or eroding with time. Which is not to say I am suddenly emancipated. It is an act of self-preservation, submitting to one’s platitudes, but a manumission nonetheless.

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Synchronicity is a concept, first explained by psychoanalyst Carl Jung, which holds that events are “meaningful coincidences” if they occur with no causal relationship yet seem to be meaningfully related. During his career, Jung furnished several slightly different definitions of it. Jung variously defined synchronicity as an “acausal connecting (togetherness) principle,” “meaningful coincidence”, and “acausal parallelism.” He introduced the concept as early as the 1920s but gave a full statement of it only in 1951 in an Eranos lecture.

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January on Hilton Head Island abides the same pattern of survival and revival that you’d expect anywhere else. At a plodding pace the apprehension and social imbroglios of Christmas and New Year recede. People are set adrift from obligation. Personal plans and business commitments re-engage. Preoccupation is replaced by purpose. Granted the resort atmosphere markedly diminishes as children and grandchildren abandon the southern hospitality of the older generation, no doubt a thankful deprivation. Bocce ball and frisbee on the beach are replaced by pensive solitary walkers performing their daily constitutional. A noiseless tranquillity descends, evenings are uninhibited, it’s that magic feeling with nowhere to go, nothing to do.

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Apparently there are some for whom a meal is at best an imperative, not exactly a take-it or leave-it situation, but neither an event for which there is any particular zeal.  Perhaps they subscribe to that prosaic rendition, “I eat to live, not live to eat“?  I can’t defend the subscription since most people who retail that advertisement are in no threat of gluttony, skinny rascals!  You’re more likely to see them jogging in the park than hedging the trough. Their interest in dining simply isn’t there. I am almost persuaded that dining is old fashioned, not what the younger generation considers integral to the social fabric.

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Politics and popularity have forever been conjoined.  It’s the name of the game. It was however disturbingly unfamiliar to hear Donald Trump’s press secretary Sean Spencer at the first media briefing of the new presidency deliver what sounded like a sandbox dispute amounting to “Ours was bigger than yours!” message.

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