There were rumours this morning as we departed the apartment to drive to the golf club for breakfast that it was snowing. I had earlier seen suggestions of same on the weather App but was undeterred. Nothing had yet materialized. I was set upon wearing my exceedingly comfortable Dillard’s Roundtree & Yorke vanilla Bermuda shorts with the expandable waistline. Snow showers in April be damn! They quickly pass. Besides the temperature was predicted to rise above freezing; and the late morning and afternoon forecast was for high winds (northerly of course) and sunshine. In any event we were going to the golf club. Our housekeeper was due to arrive within the hour. We prefer (as no doubt does she) that we’re out of the way.

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Sitting at my desk this evening after another of my partner’s incomparably gratifying and balanced meals, overlooking the endlessly magificient view of the burgeoning country fields and placid upriver aspect, I am complascently reminded of the tolerable straits. Apart from the personal patina of ¾ a century, it constitutes an exceedingly pretty picture.

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As I contemplate the upcoming USA presidential election in November, 2024, I find myself caught in a logical subterfuge. The deceit is a contradiction; and the contradiction is the perception that Americans are seemingly not clever enough to extricate themselves from what internationally appears to be defeat.  This, I have finally concluded, is an error. In short, the Americans are in my opinion, both now and historically, too clever to lapse into defeat whether it be miscommunication with others or among themselves. There is as well reason beneath what often appears to be inexplicable absurdity.

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The prescription to awaken early and begin the day is not only a productivity recommendation. It is a temporal alignment of night and day, beginning and end, up and down of the sun and moon. It has been proverbially advanced by Aristotle and Benjamin Franklin. Nor is it in my opinion strictly metaphorical.  Since my teenage years I have arisen by rote and alarm at seven o’clock in the morning. That is at least until recently when I have to confess it instinctively displeases me to sleep late.

“The early morning has gold in its mouth”, a translation of the German proverb “Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund”.

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Things speak to us in many different ways.  It is not only through speech – though even that is so diverse a method of communication to include incalculable meanings of words, intonation, dialect, volume, delivery – not to mention the abiding influence of the appearance of the vocalist. There is too the appearance of whatever surrounds us. The way Nature speaks to us. The way a child’s beautiful face speaks to us. Then of course there is music, and musical instruments (the grand piano being my favourite), musicians and singers, and the types of music (jazz, rock, country, rap, classical, opera, schmaltz). Art of every description (oils, acrylics, pencil, water colours, wood, glass, plastic, steel, bronze, stone, paper, photography, furniture, rugs and those silly accessories like paperweights and millefiori). Literature and poetry. Dreams. Convocations (school, theatre, church, synagogue, temple, boards, clubs, fraternities and sororities). Food and appetites. Architecture. Automobiles. It is easy to become adrift on a sea of impressions and expression.

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The so-called “far-right conservative “ is one who prefers boundaries. The exemplification is national (as in building walls) and international (such as the cooperation in or ignorance of wars) or local (like gated communities). As far back as the Medieval Ages, the definition of land was crucial to the well-being and success of both the Lord of the Manor who owned the land and the peasant who occupied it. It is no accident that the feudal domains of the seigneurs along the St. Lawrence River were mathematically outlined in harmonious narrow strips of land from the River to the nearest concession or sideroad. The creation was hardly Heaven sent.

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Won’t you wish to come with me
Adjoining little gems I see
That occupy me while I be
Agonizing willingly.

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It has taken me a lifetime to discover that retail is aside from the obvious (“the final link in the supply chain from producers to consumers”) a psychological exploit. It is an agenda fraught with palpable exposure. This is so not because of prior insufferable ignorance rather the unwitting acceptance of outcome without consideration of the alternative and its superior value in any event. Depending on the consumer, retail may for example involve animated (sometimes unaccountably hysterical) price differences, questionable size determination, gender suitability, vacillating public appeal, colour or fabric consternation, make or model hassles, stripped down or tarted up versions and even something as lacking in excitement as diameter vs circumference. What however is inescapable and inalterable is the sequence of associated mental and emotional attributes whether psychosomatic or real. All of which can I believe be overcome if unfortunately found to be undesirable.

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As I commented to my partner earlier today, the patently boring review of one’s life is diluted by adherence to the thesis, “Write what you know”. It is a small compliment. Yet for whatever prospective reason I also imagine it is worthwhile to note the specifics of those whom one remembers in particular. Just part of my pervasive angst but otherwise moderately sustainable.

The summary record of my life is boldly speaking a division of childhood, teenage and adulthood of which respectively I remember nothing, some and most in that order. The altering depth reflects the surviving worth of the details not just the diminutive and distancing effluxion of time.

Childhood:

I am informed I was born in Montréal, Québec (1948). At two months of age, my parents and I went to England where my sister was born about a year later. The trans-Atlantic voyage was accomplished on the Queen Mary. Our nanny in England was Mrs. Begg (“Auntie Begg”) whom I only briefly recall because she continued for many years upon our return to Canada to send birthday greetings.

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As I languished in bed earlier this morning, I addressed the issue of productivity. Specifically I examined whether being as I am now demonstrably unproductive is a manifest peril? Having spent the better part of a lifetime (basically everything I can safely recall from the age of ten onwards) devoted to accomplishment of one order or another, I now find myself submerged in a pool of iridescent indolence. It is an achievement of dubious success in spite of the shimmer; the effulgence of the moment is undeniable but I rather feel I’ve done little or nothing to deserve it. Is it the want of orthodox christianity, the absence of punishment for the crime, the reward without the suffering, the summit without the steep climb? As unfamiliar as I am with my present circumstance of inconsolable satisfaction, I am spirited to discover it is a poison which haunts young people as well. This, not because I prefer universal disadvantage, rather because it illustrates universal applicability of the infection and thus softens what might otherwise be dismissed merely as a private neurosis.

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