I maintain it doesn’t matter where on the face of the earth you are, if the sun is shining, nothing could be better.  The opposite by the way is also true. Anyway today was a brilliantly sunny day on the beach!  I am still glowing. During my entire time on the beach I saw only two clouds. I would have continued bicycling late into the afternoon had I not reluctantly succumbed to my weariness. It didn’t help that the sand was unusually wet which makes cycling rather a chore.  Plus there was a persistent headwind which mischievously changed direction even after I did!  Nonetheless the dazzling sunshine would admit no complaint. I rejoiced in the brightness of the day, the glistening Ocean, the glittering surf and the warmth of the sun .

At my age (I turn 66 tomorrow) the exigencies of bicycling are not without remark.  Oddly I detest walking any distance but I am perfectly content to bicycle for a couple or three hours.  Nonetheless it was a catalyst to reach Marker 97 at the north end of the beach earlier this morning to anticipate sprawling upon the white sand dunes near the breakwater to doze in the sunshine. There I would afford myself a respite from the strain upon my cracking knees.  In fact it wasn’t only my knees that were cracking. With some minor rotation of my head, my neck and shoulders sounded like someone stepping on a box of popcorn.

It has been many, many years since I have been to a barber shop. The last time was probably at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto where in addition to hair cutting I believe they provide traditional facial shaving services accompanied by the brush, mug and lather. Barber shops are now largely a thing of the past. Today’s fashion is a hair salon which normally caters to both men and women; and the stylists (no longer called barbers) are both men and women as well. Although it is quite probably statistically unfair to say so, a male stylist has a reputation which is in line with that of a male ballet dancer.  Even if there is evidence that the male stylist is heterosexual, he nonetheless frequently cultivates theatrical qualities of appearance, speech or personality and there is usually nothing fanciful about imagining he may have “tendencies”.

There were two things I knew I would have to arrange when we decided to spend three months on Hilton Head Island.  One was a car dealership; the other was a hair salon.  We took care of the car dealership on our way across the Island on the day we arrived.  As for the hair salon I got a referral from our estate agent.  Subsequently I scoped the location of the salon and peeked in to confirm they did men as well as women and to get a business card.  Days afterwards on a Monday I visited the salon and made an appointment with Emerson, who would not be there until Tuesday.  The receptionist told me he did men and that he was good.

Today I met Emerson.  He sat at the reception desk when I arrived at 2:20 p.m. I asked if he were Emerson, which he confirmed; and I introduced myself as his two-thirty appointment.  Immediately he ushered me to his station and, after a discussion of “what we were doing today” he got down to business.  For some weeks I had been contemplating a new look which was actually one I had imagined years ago but had never been able to pull off with my stylist. Emerson thought the idea was a good one (not that I considered his approbation entirely believable in view of the obvious commercial context).

Emerson, who is 45 years of age, may once have been thin and blonde but he has since gathered some beef and his hairdo echoes what one might expect to see in a subterranean bar.  He is not effeminate though his gentle personality doesn’t instil an aspect approaching that of a labourer.  When I asked him if he were a local or an import he informed me he came from South Carolina (he didn’t say where) but had moved to Hilton Head Island some time ago and loved it.  We concurred that Hilton Head Island was a hard act to follow. He had once lived in Denver, Colorado but had returned to look after his grandmother who has since passed and he added in the same breath that he now lives simply but comfortably.  I may have made an incorrect inference but I doubt it.  Later he told me he has a young nephew of 22 years of age who is living with him “until he gets his feet on the ground”.  I have no doubt the alliance is economically driven.

Emerson is currently doing what he can with the help of his physician to quit smoking, something about a drug.  We agreed smoking is bad, that it costs a lot, that its benefits are predictable, that it is not pretty and it makes you smell bad. I told him I had quit smoking at fifty years of age when I couldn’t breath properly on a flight from the Caribbean. As a corollary to his efforts he added that he quit drinking two years ago.  Upon hearing this we instantly shared some stories about martinis which betrayed our mutual enthusiasm for the stuff.  It didn’t bother me that we had so much in common.  The only thing that mildly perturbed me was that the haircut I wanted (long on the top and short on the sides) oddly resembled Emerson’s haircut.  No wonder he thought there was nothing objectionable about my proposal nor that it was incompatible with someone my age!  After it was all over I made an appointment to re-attend on December 30th.

While it isn’t an ambition I initially contemplated upon landing on Hilton Head Island, it has nonetheless transpired through what I can only guess is the compelling though otherwise uninspired force of nature that we are beginning to blend in with the wallpaper.  Granted Canadians are not complete freaks in comparison to the American denizens, yet tourists of any stripe invariably preserve distinguishing features no matter whence they hail. It appears that after almost a month of living here our native spots are vanishing and we are imperceptibly being absorbed into the local camouflage.

Routine sallies on our bicycles still take us to the beach where locals and tourists alike disseminate; however, the connecting paths to our residence are clearly away from the habitations of temporary visitors as are our luncheon detours to popular though reclusive establishments.  We have insinuated the recesses of Sea Pines Plantation to the extent that the bike paths we use are not those singled out for the public but are those for people familiar with the neighbourhood, skirting some of the inland lagoons and interrupted by exclusively local roadways.  The abrupt breach of continuity of some paths necessitates esoteric knowledge to complete the circuitous and sometimes complex journey.

It is a further mark of our mainstream assimilation that we think nothing of turning up at the local grocers casually dressed on our bicycles to do a bit of shopping.  Our objective is so obviously domestic that there is a complete absence of the trademarks associated with short-term residents. The items on our list are purely complementary rather than in the nature of basics.  There is only so much that will fit in a bicycle basket.

An indisputable sign of indigenous behaviour is that I have made an appointment to have my hair cut. Except during prolonged stays there is no such imperative.  I have even made my appointment specifically with Emerson, not just anybody, additional evidence of popular alliance.  And the referral to the salon came from our estate agent. It doesn’t get more communal than this!

This morning I was overwhelmed by the inherent urge to do laundry, not what you’d call the normal industry of a tourist.  This is such a mundane preoccupation that its domesticity is irrefutable.  There was no contest in this agenda from any diversionary outing, like tennis, boating or fishing.  It was a paramount necessity and it trumped anything in the nature of whimsy.  Yet another sign of acclimatization to everyday living.

When we first moved into this three-bedroom home, we didn’t instantly adjust to the sense of residential living.  We have stayed in residential hotel suites before and were accustomed to sizeable square footage, most of which was generally ignored or considered surplusage. Once however there are the intrusions of putting out the garbage, rearranging furniture, hanging clothes and putting things in drawers, the inescapable sense of belonging prevails and one actually cherishes the space to put everything.  The adjustment in this respect is driven by fact not fiction, always a levelling and humanizing experience.

As a complete affirmation of our commitment to our new residence we have even contemplated a short holiday to Bermuda.  Sounds paradoxical I know, but it is a testament to our entrenchment in the place that we even think about getting away for a break.  Plus ça change!

Finally we are becoming thoroughly comfortable in our new skin.  It requires some intellectual effort to fathom putting down roots rather than seeing one’s self as merely transient.  It is however persuasive that one is not about to leave anytime soon.  The former household habits re-emerge and overtake the flighty nature of being a visitor.   Small compliment I suppose, just blending in with the wallpaper!

I dislike getting out of bed later than 7:30 a.m.  Even on a Sunday morning. Sleeping beyond 7:30 a.m. any day of the week is not a habit I have ever cultivated; in fact I have positively rebutted it.  It throws me.  I have things to do.  It doesn’t matter where I am, I have things to do.  Being on the Island is no different.  Normally I would be anxious to go bicycling.  Today however I put that item on the back burner temporarily.  The idyllic allure of a quiet Sunday morning strangely appealed to me. Besides I was still feeling bagged after having bicycled about 20 miles every day for the past three weeks.  I decided to do something “Sunday” by permitting myself the luxury of dawdling over coffee.

The idleness lasted until after lunch.  Then I succumbed to my usual need to do something more constructive than fiddling on the computer or watching television.  Fresh air has always appealed to me.  The temperature had dropped from what it had been for the past several days so I donned my heavy wool cardigan sweater atop my golf shirt and hoodie and pushed off on the bike.

It was evident as I rode along the pathways and through the golf course that it was a Sunday.  A lull had descended upon the Island.  The vehicular, bicycle and pedestrian traffic was all but non-existent.  The wind in the tall sea pines was all that one heard.  And the sound of my tyres upon the pathway.  When I reached the open beach it was vast and unpopulated, almost forbidding.  The grey skies did nothing to enhance the taupe colour of the beach.  It was a deserted aspect.  There was a northerly wind of about 8 mph, just enough to make me feel I was earning the reward of my exercise.  I leisurely pedalled to Coligny Park where there were people gathered in aid of some charitable fund-raiser (though for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what it was).  A family with small children had congregated at the end of the path leading onto the beach.  The parents were playing ball with the children.  They clearly had no intention of wandering much further towards to the Ocean which was at a considerable distance with the receding tide.

After parking myself on a bench, shutting my eyes and submitting to the tranquillity of the day for a few moments, I redirected myself to the beach for my return sail home with the wind at my back.  The entire outing had consumed about two hours.  I spent the rest of the day puttering before throwing myself into bed where I drifted off uncommonly quickly.

Habit is the poor cousin of tradition and ritual.  Its career has forever been undistinguished.  At its worst habit is an addiction; at its best it is a custom. Normally it is a routine. Habit carries with it the suggestion of lack of self-analysis and maybe even obsession.  It is seldom associated with dynamism or creativity; it tends to be characterized by a fixed way of thinking, one which generally abhors novelty or change.  There are however good habits, such as daily exercise or eating properly. Those habits obscure the unconscious element of repetitive behaviour and are redeemed as active choices. Normally habitual behaviour is not associated with great minds unless of course the habit is Bohemian like sleeping late, chain smoking, excessive drinking, lustfulness and general failure to observe deadlines and commitments, the offbeat social habits of an artist’s drafty-garret existence.

Some habits are just worth keeping.  They provide a tried and tested experience which pays dividends every time it is repeated.  There is already enough unpredictability in the world. Why live in a state of constant turmoil and risk spoiling a good thing?  Granted habit can remove the necessity of contemplation but so what?  Especially if the habit is directed to a relatively inconsequential enterprise such as what you eat for breakfast.  Or the type of scotch whiskey you drink. Or the cars your drive.

Other habits are simply good practice, like flossing and brushing your teeth and other personal hygiene habits, making your bed every morning, visiting your physician, dentist and chiropractor, reviewing a checklist of documents and due diligence, polishing your shoes and calling your mother.  At other times habits are preposterous, like a particular way of folding your laundry, setting the table or parking your car.  These psychopathic peculiarities were epitomized by Jack Nicholson as the misanthropic, homophobic, racist, obsessive-compulsive novelist in the movie “As Good As It Gets“. He avoids stepping on sidewalk cracks while walking through the city due to a superstition of bad luck, and eats breakfast at the same table in the same restaurant every day using disposable plastic utensils he brings with him due to his pathological mysophobia.

Some people on the other hand are obsessed with change, having constantly to do something different as though salvation were to come from perpetual diversity and unfamiliarity.  While it is certainly less glamorous to talk about habit than innovation, habit may however capture a deeper philosophic truth that generally speaking there is really nothing new in the world in spite of superficial change.  You will have to travel a very long way to remove yourself from the suburbs of your own mind. The obsession with change may become its own bad habit, echoing a deeper abnormality regarding fear of stagnancy and impending mortality.

Most habits are tolerated as the personal predilections of another. Where those preferences translate into dislikes which affect others, the going is less understandable and may become toxic. Recall for example the debate about how to eat a boiled egg as satirized by Jonathan Swift in the 1726 novel “Gulliver’s Travels“.  If the criticism of habit encroaches upon what others have dignified as long-established belief or solemn ceremony it is destined to be a mine field fraught with danger.  Bigotry elevates its idiosyncrasies to the height of historical convention.  It would be considered disdainful to relegate prejudice to mere habit.

Allow me to share with you a collection of opinions by others:

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
– Aristotle

“The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.”
― Samuel Johnson

“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
― Jim Ryun

“The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits.”
― Albert Camus, The Plague

“A man who can’t bear to share his habits is a man who needs to quit them.”
― Stephen King, The Dark Tower

“Some rules are nothing but old habits that people are afraid to change.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, Souvenir

“The only way we could remember would be by constant re-reading, for knowledge unused tends to drop out of mind. Knowledge used does not need to be remembered; practice forms habits and habits make memory unnecessary. The rule is nothing; the application is everything.”
― Henry Hazlitt, Thinking as a Science

“A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit.”
― Desiderius Erasmus

“The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its absurdity.”
― Marcel Proust

“Habits are patterns, and even the smallest ones tell a lot about who you are as a person.”
― Jarod Kintz, This Book Title is Invisible

“Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stairs one step at a time.” ― Mark Twain

While I haven’t any way of knowing for sure, I’m guessing that most of us have things we’d prefer to forget.  My speculation is based on what little I know of humanity.  Among the standard human truths is this: notwithstanding our indisputable individuality we’re basically doing the same thing.  And that includes making mistakes.

It is relatively easy to accept the logic of letting it go, where the “it” is something or someone unpleasant to us.  It makes no sense to cling to a sinking ship, to remind ourselves remorselessly of the sadness we’ve endured because of some relationship or some event. The task is however significantly less logical and considerably more emotional when the topic extends beyond mere fact and circumstance and encompasses the thorny matter of conscience.  Conscience is the wild card in an otherwise strictly empirical situation.  Once conscience has insinuated itself into the assessment of the topic it is virtually impossible to ignore it.  Conscience introduces scruples.

The slippery aspect of scruples isn’t the  characterization of right or wrong but whether we submit to our inner voice or let it go.  Nobody likes to be wrong.  Sometimes there are ways of avoiding the condemnation.  Rationalization sometimes affords leeway in these matters.  Conscience is however so insidious that even if one were successful in disproving a wrong, the very real risk persists that you will never sleep until you have listened to your conscience and removed the weight from your mind.

Giving vent to our sense of right and wrong comes with consequences just as avoiding it does. My experience from childhood (when I first lied to my mother but later confessed) is that ignorance of one’s conscience is a perpetual plague and the result of repentance is far preferable to the possible advantage of undetected deceit.  This flies in the face of the facetious adage that honesty is the best policy as long as you’re not in trouble.  Juxtaposed to the counsel of perfection is the pragmatic angle that there just happen to be certain events in life which are best left uncovered where at all possible.  This may entail some active participation in a cover-up, a risky business at best but one which on a balance of considerations may be preferred.

With time even a conscience can be placated, not so much because it is ever really appeased but more because it just gets buried and smothered like the details that we covered in the first place.  Once again however there is the possibility that the tomb will be discovered.  This is a regrettable torment to have looking over one’s shoulder.

The good thing about the popularity of being wrong is that there is also the equally common virtue of humanity to forgive.  In the legal context there are specific judicial pronouncements which allow for an admission of guilt without the penalty of sentence, the so-called “Absolute Discharge”.  To gain such a privilege however the accused must normally plead “guilty”.  It is the very act of contrition which affords the compensatory escape hatch.  The decision about whether or not to plead guilty is obviously a highly charged tactical choice in a forum where one party has an obligation to prove the case against the accused beyond a reasonable doubt.  Where however the context is less formal the choice reverts to strictly personal inclinations.  It comes down to compunction and qualms whether to let it go.

What must Christopher Columbus have been thinking after he slipped his moorings and slid out into the Atlantic?  Probably the same thing kids think when they’re going on vacation – “Are we there yet?”  It’s a persistent concern whatever your future. The simple answer is that we’ll eventually get there.  But the question still remains, “Are we there yet?”

There are some for whom the journey of life is never complete.  This is unnecessarily poetic in my view.  I prefer a dénouement to an abrupt end. It is a popular myth that the journey of life is more important than getting there. Letting oneself down gently from the stimulating tensions of life is the last round and it is a pleasure not to be denied or diminished.  That’s what it means to be there, accepting that you’ve taken care of business and are entitled to relish it.  Sound easy?  Well, it is and it isn’t.  It is easy to draw the line on your current objectives.  Sometimes it is just the most convenient way to jettison one’s self from the hubbub.  But interestingly, once you’ve jumped ship, you’re left wondering, “Are we there yet?”  The problem isn’t the journey, the problem is knowing when it’s ended.  It is in some respects the same conundrum which regularly hounds the profligate spender – “When will I finally have all that I require?”  Assuming we eventually have enough, there is still the time to enjoy it.  But when have we had enough?

The active pursuit of something is considerably different from the passive delight of it.  Fortunately we are assisted in this necessary transition because we will exhaust the aggressive urges peculiar to acquisition. We are then set to relish the benefit.  Then it is time to think about where we have been in life and what we have done.  Astoundingly the recapitulation of life in these broad terms is the work of a moment.  The most casual retrospection will paint the strokes.  Decades of detail vanish with the simplest review.  There may be an inclination to belittle a lifetime of effort when summarily portrayed.  That however is not desirable and it is most certainly not germane to “getting there”.  The goal is to throw up one’s hands and enjoy the view.

It is odd what we recall about the past.  More often than not, it is not the so-called important things that happened.  Rather it is the moments we remember that paint a picture in our mind, a stand of trees, the coldness of a day at school, a pet, a first love, a friend’s distress, the drudge of studies and work.  How often have we afforded ourselves the chance to think of life in such terms?  It is a certain luxury.

Eventually we die.  We all know that.  And, just to be clear, we’re going to do it alone.  Make no mistake, it is a confrontation which no amount of hand-holding will eliminate or assuage. What however we may not fully appreciate in addition to these two certainties – that we will die and that we will be alone – is that everything we do in life is a preparation for that final moment.  Each act and event leading to that fateful day draws us incrementally closer to it. It isn’t merely axiomatic, it is empirical. This calamity does not however render absurd whatever we do until then, nor does it mean that the life that we have is without ultimate significance, value or purpose.  What it does mean is that we cannot escape having to consider our own being.  Alone.

For a social person such as I, the intensity of daily living not only enlivens me but may in fact also sustain me.  The diminution of that intensity likewise has at least initially the reverse effect.  As one’s occupation in life declines for whatever reason the potential arises that self-expression subsides as well and that fact once again brings us closer to the lonely contemplation of who we are.  Eventually there is nothing else to do.

The drying up of the sap of our being is not altogether inconvenient.  For one thing, we  tire.  It is impossible that we will go on doing what we’ve always done forever.  In any event even if one is determined to continue “being productive” it is inescapable that Nature will teach us how to die.  This does not imply that the process will be rushed (other than in the sense that Time slips away inexplicably).  Until the moment comes when we must die and bear death alone, we can begin to welcome the isolation.  All life’s former congregations, communications, couplings and coordinations will dissolve in the face of our ultimate singularity.  If we’re lucky we’ll have time to contemplate that loneliness.