There was a cool wash in the clear air this morning. It unmistakably hinted at approaching autumn weather – an anticipation of frost on the patio wooden railings, an azure dome above and a provocative stir among the leaves. Attired in my synthetic black jersey, T-shirt and shorts with the zippered side-pockets I sailed along the shaded promenade cheerfully thanking the young bearded landscape workers for their remarkable transformation of the pathway. Again and again I am reminded of the fortuity of being confined by the pandemic to the County of Lanark.  Perhaps our international quarantine will be abandoned by next spring. For the time being there is no digestible proposal for change.

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With the customary precipitateness we’re swinging headlong into the fourth quarter of August, the late summer balmy days of emerald corn fields, waxed yellow beans, polished green zucchini and small ivory potatoes. All this beneath a vast ceiling of crystal blue, billowing white clouds and high air pressure. Spirited by an early morning cycle adjacent the Mississippi River on the erstwhile railway right-of-way and a subsequent unwitting siting of Hudson’s vegetable stand alongside the road we’ve arranged to have tonight a traditional meal of meat-and-potatoes – punctuated with butter, ground pepper and Maldon sea salt flakes.

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There isn’t anyone I imagine who hasn’t at one time or another yearned to be somewhere else; yearning to do something else with someone else. But as the saying goes, “You is what you is!” and there ain’t no turning back or changing the face of the clock. Though the frequency may not be as great as that particular longing, today marked one of those serendipitous moments when everything goes in the right direction, making one happy to commit willingly to whatever is at hand. Indeed the combined fortuity today of the weather, shopping and driving experience prompted me to rejoice in its currency. As with so many similar calculations many of the incidents were trifling by any account, things like the chance discovery of a cheap but highly workable product for what had been a simmering though negligible idea over the past several years.

The song’s title (“La vie en rose”) can be translated as “Life in happy hues”, “Life seen through happy lenses”, or “Life in rosy hues”; its literal meaning is “Life in Pink.” La Vie en rose (May 1945) is a song by Édith Piaf, with music by Louiguy, Édith Piaf being the lyricist, but not the composer, registered with SACEM.

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It was about 1978 – shortly after I bought my first house – that I entertained my long-standing friend Jo Ann Trudeau from Toronto.  She and I had attended undergraduate university at Glendon Hall together. We shared many singular occasions. Among them was watching the televised landing of the first man on the moon from her parents’ two-storey penthouse on St. Clair Avenue East. There were other less dramatic incidents like my introduction to the Bodum French coffee press – also on the balcony of her parents’ place one sunny Saturday spring morning. I recall too some fairly vivid memories surrounding chocolate milk shakes which my discretion prohibits me to repeat. But what lingers most prominently is Jo Ann’s gift of a single red rose.  She gave it me as a “house warming” gift.  It was boxed in a large flower cardboard carton complete with white tissue paper and green ferns.

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Although not a singular occurrence it isn’t often I’d compare dining out with going to the circus. This evening’s nosh at Les Fougères in Tenaga, Quebec in the Gatineau Hills near Chelsea promises to be just that; viz., an amusing assortment of rides! One of our team in particular is notorious for atmospheric conduct. I take strictly an observer’s opinion without contaminating the performance as somehow personal or embarrassing.  My interest is more clinical, perhaps extending to the realm of artistic content. Whatever the characterization of the evening I am certain it will inspire both mirth and wit.

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Be assured the assertion – “Something’s missing!” – is far from trifling! It nonetheless remained until early this afternoon part of the imperceptible veneer of my life. I nonetheless have no doubt whatsoever that it is a signal and long-standing hobby horse of mine. It is one whose recognition amounts to the casual discovery of pearl in an oyster. Comically – or perhaps I should say coincidentally – I misplaced two items today. This for me qualifies as an unusual event and one which recommends my attention. My iPhone fell out of my pocket while bicycling this morning (I recovered it); and later this afternoon my lip balm fell from my pocket while driving (I haven’t located it). Both instances highlight what for me is always the equal importance of maintaining connection with things both big and small. Perfection is as indiscriminate as anything else!

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It pains me to recall what normally I felt on a Monday morning back in my working and student days.  I mention this because today is Monday and quite honestly if I hadn’t checked my iPhone I wouldn’t have known. Besides it feels like a Sunday. Perhaps because the air is calm.  I yearned to play some choral music.  It must have been at that point that I checked my iPhone or remembered we had met with friends at the golf club for breakfast yesterday – a Sunday.

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Within the unseen bounds of the COVID-19 pandemic it is an unusual though tolerable confession that the only thing I have planned for the rest of my life is breakfast tomorrow at the golf club with friends. Oh, and a haircut next week. Apart from those minor conventions there is quite literally nothing else on the horizon other than a tentative “we must get together” with other residents here.

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I have this interminable preoccupation with the measure of things.  I am driven by an inexplicable necessity to explain what has happened. Mine hasn’t the dignity of the historic absorption; rather, my urges are motivated by the more vulgar assessment of purpose and the identification of tendencies as opposed to actual events and other material hardware. Lest you consider this a trifling enquiry I must interject that the opposite pole of such scrutiny is that related to pure imagination, exotic scientific and psychological analysis, Star Wars and similar movies from Hollywood, religion and the various vehicles advanced to create life and enable reincarnation. I presume you will agree that confining oneself to the more introspective boundaries of personal thought is sufficient insight into the “hereafter“. The truth is that no one knows what is to come and therefore restricting literary rumination to current circumstances is perhaps not entirely unfounded.

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The rampant adage, “Focus on the here and now!“, may at first appear merely to isolate the present from the past and the future.  I am not convinced it is quite that simple. I believe the admonition goes far beyond the obvious implication that we can only truly know the present. Without engendering a trite high school argument to the debate, the reprimand to stick to the present does not diminish the sweet texture of the past and the tantalizing seduction of the future howsoever we reignite them either in our memory or in our mind’s eye. I discovered today that “Living the dream!” is neither an assessment of the past nor a fantasy of the future; it is instead nothing more complicated than the road directly in front of you. And you can be guaranteed that following that particular path will be the same fleeting journey you’d take by any other design.

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