We’re just shy of 4 weeks from Christmas Eve. The lightly falling snow is hardly objectionable in this charismatic border of youthful imagery, planned generosity and underlying spirituality. Ask any Northerner who has had to endure the indignity of Christmas without snow – it’s always material for conflicting appeal.
There are many things that matter in life. For instance, when is it expected that the sun will burn out, exhausting whatever vast resource of fuel or combustible gases it currently employs? And who created that explosion in the first place? And where did that authority come from? Another more proximate essence is whether we’ll ever recognize and accept that we’re all in this together? That our differences are merely those of interpretation?
Not to press the matter too enthusiastically (it will not be until 2026 that I have been in Almonte for 50 years consecutively), I thought I might record some of my memories from the time I arrived in Almonte around June 12th, 1976 (my late mother’s birthday). What follows is the sequence of events arising from the suggestion of Senator George James McIlraith PC QC, Counsel for Messrs. Macdonald, Affleck Barrs. &c., Ottawa (where I had articled) that I might wish to apply to join Messrs. Galligan & Sheffield Barrs. &c. upon their recent acquisition of the law firm of Raymond Algernon Jamieson QC who was retiring after 50 years of practice in the Town of Almonte. Galligan was the son-in-law of Senator McIlraith. Sheffield is now a retired member of the provincial court bench.
Today was a paradoxically brilliant though magnificently foggy day with dry roads. As a photo hobbyist and friend of ours later observed, a close examination of the trees revealed remarkable frozen crystals. During the afternoon (as is my wont) I leisurely sailed about in my car – across to Stittsville (for the mandatory wash) then up to Arnprior to the Campbell Road exit, back along Hwy#417 then along Hwy#416 to Oxford Station and finally home on Trans-Canada Hwy#7 to the Appleton Side Road nearby Carleton Place. The drive was somewhat longer than normal because I deliberately wanted to exhaust the electric charge a) to test how far it would go on 80 per cent (400 Km) charge (I drove about 300 Km with about 50 Km remaining – so 400 Km was a fairly accurate assessment of range given my occasional spurts of violent acceleration); and, b) so I could afterwards instruct the car to charge to 100 per cent (though 80 per cent charge is recommended for “daily driving” – a characterization which I feel I exceeded today and may do again tomorrow as balmy weather is forecast). I hardly think an estimated monthly range of 5,000 Km is “daily driving”.
Given my confining immobility (my calcified spine no longer props me upright for prolonged period) I have no hesitancy chronicling today’s leisurely drive throughout the countryside. It was my version of a seasonal sleigh ride, an aimless but productive time to chat with my partner, a fanciful contemplation of the upcoming holiday. The morning’s crisp air and bright blue sky invited drama. It was a spirited but dawdling drive along dry roads from our small town into the hinterland to nearby villages and historic rural areas along the Ottawa River (the resort of reclaimed pinewood that once outfitted our study with the Vermont casting fireplace insert).
My sister and I have always succumbed to the buzz of the impending late December holiday season. Once as children we began preparing Christmas displays in July! Other times we rehearsed plays (to be performed for our parents) surrounding the common themes of Christmas. Our father drove us around the neighbourhood in NW Washington DC to look at the residential lawn ornaments and glittering trees. Our mother’s wonderful baking aroma filled the house.
My goddaughter and niece Jennifer today sent me a delightful read (which, by the way, I listened to while being read to me by a terribly British lady with a refined accent). The website (Aeon Media Group Ltd. 2012 – 2025, a registered charity in association with Aeon America) hails from Australia. It’s called Aeon Essays. I recommend it. Amusingly however I disagree with the predominant theme of the learned writer’s analysis in the featured column. The author was writing about diaries. My hurried perception is that she (Elena Mary, a postdoctoral associate member in the Faculty of History at the University of Oxford in the UK) suggested diaries fulfill the need to be productive; and, that many of them contain outlines of a manner of doing so.
The best we can hope for is a constructive (and preferably comforting) dialogue with the mysterious pattern of life. Our narrative – though inescapably aligned with the universal truths and realities- is invariably unique; its detail surpasses any theme – dominant or subordinate – thar we or anyone else might possibly imagine or predict. While we may conceive or pretend to believe that we are more than a tiny boat perilously bobbing on open waters far from land, our moorings seldom constitute more than mere resonance, that is, a reinforcement, a prolongation, a reverberation, a reflection or memory. Resonance is a polite and convenient label for a synchronous vibration, the largest possible response to a signal, a response to a higher energy.
It’s a chilly slow-moving Sunday afternoon mid-November in the country. Already the sunshine is declining. The past 24 hours have exhibited a varied collection of wintertime weather – freezing rain, sleet, snow flurries and finally the crisp, clearing blue sky. The roadways have been remarkable for like scheme – slush, ice pellets and crackling salt mixture; and finally the dry, clear pavement ribbons.
Not unlike my late father so many years ago when reading a profitable book, I become immersed in the narrative and subsequently relate (as perhaps I am doing now) the intelligence deriving therefrom. There is always a lesson to reap. Plutarch’s Lives – though commonly denoted a Greek history – is inescapably recommended as a study of morality, confronting the sometimes rude and blunt truths of humanity.