If I were to size up the sum of my life it would oddly consist predominantly of a collection of things, ideas and people from which and from whom I have purposively withdrawn. What in many instances were once the objects of focus, direction and desire have all but vanished from view, discarded as so much errant surplusage It is in part testimony to my fickle passions. It also captures a paradox of living.
It is both natural and inevitable that as one ages and disengages from the traffic of everyday life, one becomes increasingly reclusive and generally avoids involvement in anything but the most private undertakings. In spite of this irrevocable declension I have never resisted a proposal to visit a private or public art gallery. The fine arts inspire me and few are more provocative for their imaginative, aesthetic, or intellectual content than the work of Diana Thorneycroft.
Rigid and painful, intermittently arising from the dampened bed clothes. Changed my T-shirt for the third time. Late getting up again this morning, after ten o’clock. Spent the entire night rocking left then right, staring at the iPhone’s white light in the bathroom, finally at 7:00 am falling asleep through sheer exhaustion, encumbered by disturbing thoughts which I can never recall. What a dreadful time to start the day! The lost time cannot be recovered!
We have a number of issues tormenting us. Some are important medical matters; others are just annoying mechanical stuff. My tolerance of unresolved agenda has never been good. My imagination works overtime to compound the concerns. And it doesn’t help that at the grocery store this afternoon the elderly Cheese Lady recounted her story of being scammed out of $2,000 yesterday, poor thing!
By the admission of the concierge or maître d’ of almost any 5-star hotel the standard of apparel is now virtually unrestricted. We’ve seen a couple in the main dining room of the Carlyle in matching designer sweat pants and top (and another – Robert Downey, Jr. in fact – wearing a baseball cap at table); people in blue jeans in the main dining room of the Jekyll Island Club; shorts everywhere at the Plaza including the Palm Court. The truth is, if the hotels want the business, they’ll take what they get. Besides I know of no one who travels with black tie. By design the intention of travellers is to wear strictly what is comfortable and easy to launder on the run. Similarly if a place imposes a dress code it is more likely to be avoided (though possibly the deference persists on upscale charter cruises which cater to an older crowd).
No doubt you take pride as I do in the possession of certain quality things such as crystal decanters, bronze sculpture, oil paintings, brass lamps, mantle clocks, sticks of mahogany furniture, Persian rugs, sterling silver flatware, bone china, jewellery and even more personal items like spectacles. Have you, however, considered a toothbrush?
Not often have I the pleasure of a do-nothing day, a day when my calendar is completely empty and there is nothing remotely urgent or pressing. An unqualified do-nothing day is one when I can’t imagine doing anything at all. It’s akin to a vacuum, a day which is recognizable for its utter lack of imperative. As an ardent existentialist I find the absence of an agenda slightly unsettling though I balance this knee-jerk paranoia by recalling that too often there is lots going on and nothing happening. Our punishing addiction to activity is at times irresponsible.
My father was of New Brunswick stock. His ancestors were United Empire Loyalists who fled colonial America and settled in eastern Canada. His family became part of that North American historical network of mercantile traffic up and down the coast of the Atlantic Ocean which embraced even Dalhousie Law School where I later studied in Halifax, Nova Scotia and Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The insignificance of international boundaries is especially apparent if one drives as we did from Ottawa, Ontario to St. Andrews by the Sea, New Brunswick. Ottawa, Montreal, Sherbrooke, Bangor (Maine) and St. Andrews by the Sea are on roughly the same latitudinal parallel. And to capture the true backwoods flavour of the nexus, St. Andrews by the Sea is almost contiguous to Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge which is in Maine directly across a straight from St. Andrews by the Sea. If, as so many people appear to do, one wishes to travel as the crow flies, the direct route between Ottawa and St. Andrews by the Sea is across the vast northern tree-covered tip of Maine instead of the longer route to Quebec City along the St. Lawrence River.
Cape Cod is and always has been for me about Provincetown. I have visited many other parts of the Cape including nearby Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard but always felt drawn to Provincetown. As quirky as P-Town is with its “tea” dances at the Boat Slip, drag shows and general rowdiness, the recollection of it nonetheless evokes primarily the customary traditions of Cape Cod. The picture in my mind is of sand dunes, salty air, winding roads, lobster stew, ocean view, sky of blue (though perhaps not so much the “church bells chimin’ on a Sunday morn”).
In the autumn of 1967 when I studied Philosophy at Gledon Hall in Toronto, I was introduced to Rosalee Matalon, the daughter of a well-to-do family in Kingston, Jamaica. I believe her family owned Appleton Estate Rum. She was a quiet but stunningly beautiful young lady, tall and sylphlike. I had been asked to connect with her because she was a friend of Alexander Dougall, a former boarding school chum of mine from St. Andrew’s College in Aurora.