It has been a frenetic day. Starting at 7:30 am this morning when I got up. Or rather when I had to get up. I had an appointment at 9:30 am with a very capable masseur for some traction control. Followed by breakfast on the patio at the golf club. The admission of having consumed such quantity of sausage, bacon, eggs and cheese made me wonder when my heart will attack me one last time. I can’t say it inhibited my gusto. It was a hot, hot day; and I like the heat.  I am convinced there is nothing  – perhaps other than the now legal vials of THC/CBD – which will erase my neuropathy and limitless other malfunctions and degeneration peculiar to that insipid prosecution called old age, an extremely casual reference to what appears to me at least to be an entirely predictable if not indeed calculated decomposition.

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The wind is glutted today with a dry piercing heat amid the swelling balmy air.  It is reminiscent of an impending storm being tracked across a cresting lake on a summer day while squinting into the distance at mounting grey clouds. Meanwhile the turbulence translates the fields of flourishing corn stalks into a set of chimes, a peculiar rustle adorned by an emerald green mantle. The wind, the heat and the changing atmosphere invite native lethargy. It is summer at last!

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The weather forecast this morning was for rain throughout the day.  The prediction was like a bandage about my perpetually wounded psyche which forever compels me to reach for production and accomplishment, performance and reward, utility and function. Anything to sanctify my purpose. Thus temporarily released from the daily constitutional bicycle ride I regaled in the tranquility of my morning.  Breakfast was the usual concoction of fresh fruit, ripened cheese, prunes and fibre. That painless part of routine had been restored. I prolonged the dalliance at table by engaging my Hemingway devotion to standing at the easel and writing – but admittedly without standing or the customary smugness which follows even the moderate exertion of bicycling throughout the neighbourhood. Inertia is not a talent for which I have developed an especial taste. Luckily for me I have the keen mechanical foundation of the modern automobile to propel me through the shifting zones of bland habit, necessity and existential obscurity.

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I have long ago abated my erstwhile gusto for Christmas. And birthdays or statutory holidays. There are no clients about whom to concern myself. Nor parents. We’ve downsized and utterly abandoned any thought whatsoever about new furnishings, accessories or ornaments.  There are no parties or invitations on the horizon. Even Trump appears to be evaporating. Instead we have lapsed into calculated contentment and agèd habits and customs. Perhaps also into that much derided absorption of the Rastafarians into purposeless maintenance and cleaning, “Care it good, Boss, for soon it will be mine!”

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It is but a distant and distracted regard I have of things on my daily calendar; viz., lectures, massage, webinar, medical exam, dental appointments, Amazon packages, 2nd vaccinations, blood test, birthdays and the recall of one no longer whinnying among us (an abrupt and unfair loss). It is an uncommon inattentiveness at this time of year since my retirement on March 31, 2014 when we first headed to Florida in July on an exceedingly open road, buoyed by unparalleled novelty and pioneering, when we summarily reversed the standard course of conduct and abandoned public service for the trifling scope of bicycling and laying in a secluded corner of a beach along the Atlantic Ocean, when in a trice the record of school, education and employment crystallized and drained precipitously off the edge of the map proving the earth is flat as far as one can see. Years later it melted down the coast into the Gulf of Mexico and then the Florida Keys. And now it is like a dream from which I am barely awake, uncertain whether the dream is over or whether new horizons await.

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As the pandemic appears to be rounding the corner, many of us are by now accustomed to measure our well-being by the narrow standards of vaccination and the varying restrictive levels of retail customer service. We have for example recently negotiated our 2nd dose of Pfizer, something that affords enormous satisfaction and sense of accomplishment. And just days ago we boasted our first breakfast on the patio at the golf club. But I am still awaiting my barber to reopen.  Nonetheless our private medical insurers have lately offered coverage when traveling abroad for prolonged periods in excess of 40 days. What remains however is critical for advancement out of the COVID sanctuary; namely, the opening of the Canada/US border for other than “non-essential travel”. Until then we’re like the deaf, living in a glass cage.  Meanwhile we continue to investigate venues up and down the Florida Keys and within numerous barrier islands along the Gulf of Mexico.

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The new-made Master Mason has gone through a figurative death and come out of it resurrected as a new being, “the perfected Initiate has mastered his lower nature and has become the Perfect Man.” He is no longer ruled by materialistic views or wants but now focuses on the more spiritual plain.

Knowing as I do the deeply embedded apocryphal history of Free Masonry I am guessing that as far back as the Egyptian Pharaohs silver (the “soul“) expresses the earthly visceral elements of humanity; and that gold (the “spirit“) captures the ethereal elevation. I am quite in agreement concerning the superiority of gold though I hasten to affirm that I like both. Indeed both metals are historically highly esteemed.  The only oddities for me are platinum and white gold because the first is unusual and generally misunderstood, while the other is in my opinion contrary to the redeeming buttery yellow of gold. Platinum is a silvery-white metal interestingly deriving its name from an alteration of “platina” itself a diminutive of “plata” for silver.

The white silver metal known as platinum is the heaviest of the precious metals, weighing almost twice as much as karat gold. It is dense, ductile and impervious to corrosion. It is the least reactive metal and it has a very high melting point.

But I can tell you from my experience in this sometimes arcane sphere of silver and gold that the two are seldom entwined either by preference or otherwise. They each have a singular allure for a separate and distinct audience. I have for example only ever heard people willingly alter their preference for gold to platinum for purposes of strict structural integrity or conscious deceit (namely, to camouflage ornamentation as less expensive silver).

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I have long championed Almonte the ideal rural Ontario small town.  It borders the picturesque Mississippi River and has everything one requires; viz.,  hospital (and another nearby), dentists, chiropractors, banks, churches (though no synagogue as yet), walking/bike/ATVs trail, alameda, grocery stores, pharmacies, golf clubs, residential choices, fair ground, beach, bakeries, ice cream shops, coffee houses, funeral home, burial grounds, monumental masons, contractors, restaurants, food wagons, butchers, hair and nails salons, service clubs, Masonic Lodge (whose members adorn their white lambskin aprons with gold braid signifying one of the oldest Lodges in Canada), retail shops (including lately a cannabis outlet), Farmer’s Market, library, parks, art galleries, lawyers, accountants, estate agents, corporate headquarters, hydro-electric plant, arena, acoustically refined auditorium in the Old Town Hall (complete with a Steinway concert grand piano), retirement residence, museums, local electronic newspaper, car washes, auto mechanics and collision repair, nursing home, lawn bowling green and massage therapists. My experience today with the latter was through Warren Vibert-Adams who is coincidentally an Almonte native.  He echoes the thoughtfulness, dedication and expertise of his many similarly esteemed colleagues of various arts, trades and professions in the Town of Mississippi Mills of which Almonte is a part along with the surrounding Townships of Ramsay and Pakenham.

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Chris Rock said it best when speaking about the wackos in society, “What ever happened to crazy!”  Sometimes there’s just no other explanation. Trump and many of his Republican lickspittles – starting with Mike Pence and descending precipitously to Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Jim Jordon, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and finally former senate majority leader and self-interested lout Mitch McConnell – seem to me to fit well into that generalized category of sadly deranged people.  While Trump may be a circus ringleader he’s not up to the standards of intelligence and logic expected in public office. As digestible and entertaining as he may be Trump is not the calibre of leadership required.  And just because there are millions who are labelled by the pundits as Trump supporters, I am convinced the persuasion is the same that attracts people to daytime television – which frankly I consider utterly void of penetration yet it is regrettably fodder to a near majority. In the binary political system of the United States of America this evident conflict between minority and majority is to be expected – there’s literally no other way to vote, just one or the other.  But unlike horseshoes and grenades, close doesn’t count!

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Quelle journée admirable ! J’ai passé toute la matinée étendu sur l’herbe, devant ma maison, sous l’énorme platane qui la couvre, l’abrite et l’ombrage tout entière. J’aime ce pays, et j’aime y vivre parce que j’y ai mes racines, ces profondes et délicates racines, qui attachent un homme à la terre où sont nés et morts ses aïeux, qui l’attachent à ce qu’on pense et à ce qu’on mange, aux usages comme aux nourritures, aux locutions locales, aux intonations des paysans, aux odeurs du sol, des villages et de l’air lui-même.

Guy de Maupassant, “Le Horla.”

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