We’re on a roll! It’s March 1st and we started things  – our closing month here – with uncommon gusto. After an early morning breakfast at Palmetto Bay Sunrise Café (where the clatter and chatter and bustling activity reflected the island’s atmosphere of buoyancy on this sunny cloudless day) we stopped at Publix, got a few things, then headed home over the newly paved roads to our winter cottage at Lands End on Braddock Cove. But not before having diverted to Zips Car Wash where in addition to a summary wash we also vacuumed the car and sprayed and wiped the interior (as well as dusting the dash). All of which is to say, an ideal outing on a brilliant Saturday morning.

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Today is the end of February. Another perfect day on Hilton Head Island SC, clear sky, moderate temperatures, that magic feeling “Nowhere to go, Nothing to do”. The paving of the roadway in the immediate vicinity of Lands End (where our cottage is located on the southern toe of the island) nears completion; the sidewalk pathways are now finished, no more having to battle construction zones for cycling. The workers, in spite of their rough appearance and noisy machines, perform with artistic precision.

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The signet ring is as singular as an engagement ring or a wedding band. It is predominantly worn by men and normally on the non-dominant left hand pinky finger.  It is meant to be both noticeable and modest, a corruption not dissimilar to the austerity of royalty though without the middle finger vigour of the papal ring for kissing.

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It has taken me a full month to adjust to our new bearings on Hilton Head Island.  Even though we’ve always resided within Sea Pines Plantation whenever we have visited; and, even though over the past decade we have incrementally descended southerly from Marriott’s Grande Ocean where we first lingered here at the most northern end of Sea Pines (actually just outside the gate), then to Turtle Lane, Calibogue Club Villas, Beachside Tennis Villas, Cutter Court Villas (in Harbour Town) and South Beach Club, being now situate on Lands End (which as the name suggests is the most southern point of the island) there are very different highlights which distinguish the place.  For one, we’re on Braddock Cove which adjoins Calibogue Sound and the North Atlantic Ocean. On this flat, sea level island there is nothing of consequence impeding the wind from the ocean. We are being perpetually refreshed in spite of being otherwise highly insulated and removed.

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Lately I have amused myself by editing iPhone photographs of Hilton Head Island and by using AI (artificial intelligence) on all my devices (iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro) to create images of heraldic shields. The capacity of both (photographs and AI) for novelty, simplicity and facility is astounding.  I recall for example at 18 years of age having bought my first 35mm camera, an Agfa Silette LK. My introductory experiment with it went badly. Unknowingly I exhausted an entire roll of film (but kept taking photos) before appreciating my mistake.  It was an unfortunate learning curve because I had been using the camera on our automobile journey from Stockholm, Sweden to the Arctic Circle and back through the Norwegian fjords to Oslo. From what I recollect I lost the last frame of film after sailing on the Baltic Sea and upon arrival at the Arctic Circle. I am quite certain none of the photographs would have amounted to anything in any event. I subsequently bought a Nikon but every photograph I ever took that had been developed has since vanished.

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It’s a question I have often asked myself and I suspect it is one others have on occasion asked themselves too; viz., What if things had been different? To begin, the seat of the curiosity arises, at least in my case, from the knowledge that I had other choices along the way. This of course is not the case for everyone for whom the question arises. Some people merely wonder whether things would’ve been different if they had escaped certain peril or infirmity for example.  Not everyone one of us has options in life; but we all follow paths which by whatever consequence, whether decided by us or otherwise, change our course and direction in life. Similarly whatever that alignment, the result is in retrospect inalterable. Therefore it would appear that the examination of what might have been different is purely whimsical and illogical, perhaps even unhealthy or at the very least unhelpful and unnecessary.  I do not however agree entirely.

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Excerpt From
Michel de Montaigne.
“The Essays of Montaigne — Complete.”

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It began on a crisp Saturday evening, February 24, 1996, in the heart of the ByWard Market. The air in the bar was thick with the scent of cigarettes, mingling with the sharp, intoxicating aroma of martinis. Bee and Dee met by happenstance, two souls drawn together by the magnetic pull of chance. Their conversation was effortless, flowing like a well-aged spirit, each word strengthening the foundation of an unspoken connection.

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Note to Reader: What follows is an exact copy of a conversation I had with AI (here attributed to “Hal”).  What is transcribed is both precisely what I (“Me”) wrote and what AI (“Hal”) responded.  Nothing has been changed.  It constitutes for me my first palpable excitement of this technology, the amplification of which I continue to investigate. The featured image was as well created by the ChatGPT.

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A Sunday—an interlude, a quiet withdrawal from the relentless mechanics of commerce that govern the preceding week. The island, usually caught in the thrumming pulse of routine, today moves at a gentler pace. The roads, once burdened with urgency, are untroubled now, their silence a hymn to the lingering reverence of the sabbath—whether by faith, by habit, or by some unspoken need for respite. Even in this modern age, the seventh day asserts its quiet dominion, as though time itself acknowledges the necessity of stillness.

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