Death, howsoever elegantly portrayed, is I believe more worrisome than most care to admit. The religious pacification of death is – to my philosophic training – no more persuasive than two fingers of whiskey; that is, helpful but not necessarily determinative or lingering. My greatest despair is disconnecting from my loved ones, those to whom I owe so much. It is an unaccountable privilege.
Out of nowhere – and with no identifiable warning – we have precipitously broken free of the mercurial springtime weather and vaulted into the disencumbering month of June. The limitless summer sun is warm and shining brilliantly in a cloudless blue sky!
It was the end of the day before I had the opportunity to relish the balmy summer air. My morning was taken up with an annual visit to the optometrist. It was mid-afternoon before my dilated pupils had recovered. In preparation of my ritual automotive jaunt, I first lingered on the balcony in the warm sunshine. But I didn’t stay long because the weather was inviting activity and motion. The motor vehicle is my vicarious connection to that austere motive.
I have encountered a paradox. It’s not an enigma or a puzzle. It is more a frustration, a seemingly inexorable contradiction or an uncommon incongruity. Today the weather, with its ideal temperatures, light breeze, azure sky and endless variety of small white clouds, is of unparalleled absorption. Normally nothing but deliberate misadventure would challenge the perception. It is a most lovely day. As generously of late there have been a lot to compare. It thus displeases me to comment in any way unfavourably about today’s trifling episodes which have so irritatingly infected the rhapsodic account. Yet were it not for the parade of annoying features which have interrupted and plagued me from the moment I awoke this morning and retreated from the lair, I would instead wax enthusiastically upon the glimmering river beneath the brilliant dome.
The Ivy Restaurant at 61 Shipman’s Lane, Lansdowne, Ontario on the parkway adjacent the St. Lawrence River was today’s Sunday drive destination. We were anxious to scope the joint at the start of the season. The place was open and operational though not as yet accommodating its usual crowds. In any event we were not interested in dining. Instead we contented ourselves with a visit to the Coach House for a coffee and espresso. We sat outside at a small patio table overlooking the river and the passing yachts.
While not everything today is functioning as it should, neither is the inconvenience overly disturbing. It is no doubt just another of those trifling matters requiring stock maintenance. I’ll deal with it on Monday next when the office opens for the business week. I’ve sent an email requesting an appointment. The rest however is unequivocally ideal – the winding corridors of tree lined country roads, blue sky with mountains of white clouds, the river a majestic shiny blue, the air breezy, dry and cool.
America dubiously occupies the world stage by the discredited virtue of its widespread wartime aggressions and international hostile manoeuvres; while at the same time provoking (and attempting to dilute) the appearance of violent internal civil conflict. When remarking both currently and historically upon Americans, it requires little effort to uncover the perceived threat of communism, socialism and the so-called Radical Left. Everywhere there is a manifestation of the invasive effect of difference, toleration and unrestrained democracy. Often the only palpable warning of the infection arises from political ambition, separated from a logical deductive consideration of the premises.
Notwithstanding the current withdrawal of Canadians from the United States of America, after having spent 6 months of the year there for the past decade, I continue – as though by irrepressible habit – to remark upon the domestic differences in the two latitudes. As mundane as it may sound, one of the primary differences relates to my driving habits.
My stockpile for idle amusement is admittedly finite. Inexplicably I hesitated this morning – an unparalleled springtime day – before launching onto the county roads for a routine but undetermined dawdle about the local countryside. There were however conditions precedent first to be fulfilled. After our conjoined and modest constitutional in the exercise room on the stationary bicycle and treadmill – and upon afterwards having sponged up the invigorating Vitamin D while briefly reposed on the balcony – the outstanding weather at last communicated its irresistible magnetism.
It isn’t often nowadays that we inhabit the ranks of the skilfully employed even peripherally; nor that we commence our daily wheeze early in the day. Today however was an exception. We were underway sharply at seven o’clock this morning, preparing to break the fast at the golf club at nine o’clock with our friends B&G from along the Rideau Canal southwest of Ottawa. Last evening we telephoned to arrange the impromptu foregathering. Fortuitously they were both available. The weather today was ideal, a summery day of balmy air and sparkling sunshine.