We landed on Hilton Head Island a little over ten days ago. As curious as it may sound we today concluded our residential rental arrangement here for next year’s winter season (2016 – 17).  While there would appear to be no particular urgency to the matter, it is not sous-entendu that the place one desires will necessarily be available for five uninterrupted months. The longer one waits, the more likely it is that there may arise interim rentals during that five-month stretch (especially around the American Thanksgiving, Christmas and March Break). Naturally if one doesn’t give a damn about one property in particular, or if one feels adventurous about letting things unfold as they may, then there is no need whatever to direct one’s mind to such detail. We however prefer some certainty. We are not cavalier about where we’ll end up. After traveling here for five years, we know the Island tolerably well and, although I am the first to agree that the entire Island is superb, we nonetheless know where we do and do not prefer to be. And quite frankly most interlopers such as we haven’t the prospect of being here for five months so the forward planning is obviously of less significance. Continue reading →

I feel I must learn to account for my life in code here on Hilton Head Island.  The reason?  Practically every day is the same – which is to say, divine – and I am running out of ways to chronicle it though I never tire of saying it. Certainly there are occasional modifications but the prominent themes are tiresomely predictable; viz., get up, drink coffee, stare out the window at the sunlight on the sand, the water and the lush palm trees, eat fresh fruit, shower, apply Coppertone, bicycle up the coast on the mainland, bicycle home on the beach, flake out by the pool, eat dinner, watch a movie, go to bed.  There must be a code for all that, it really doesn’t differ much from day to day.  Just the crashing waves of the Ocean, the squawk of the gulls, the fresh salt sea air, the sun, perpetual sunshine and warmth!

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It’s Tuesday evening, 6:32 p.m., the tail end of another sublime day under the sea pines and palm trees on Hilton Head Island.  Although the temperature didn’t climb much above 60°F today the sky was blue and the sunshine brilliant.  After our routine (though somewhat truncated) 2½-hour bicycle ride this morning I rewarded myself by lounging by the pool in the warm mid-afternoon sunshine.  I dozed for about half an hour, a much needed recuperation. Afterwards I showered and dressed then went shopping for a duvet (“down alternative”) and a bath mat. Now as the day at last winds down we’re perched at the dining room table in front of our respective MacBook Pro computers, sipping Perrier and S.Pellegrino listening to Benny Goodman on Spotify. The remarkably true sound is being piped through our Bose Mini Soundlink.  We’re basically having left-overs for dinner tonight.  I was overly enthusiastic in the grocery stores in the past couple of days and bought rather more than we needed.  We’ll attempt to put a dent in what we have before going to Fresh Market to indulge ourselves in those marvellous crab cakes!  The grocery aisles will be a dangerous place in the next 48 hours as everyone here prepares for the American Thanksgiving feast. Kroger’s (parenthetically founded by Bernard Kroger in 1883 in Cincinnati, Ohio and now the country’s largest supermarket chain by revenue, about $103B in 2014) condescended to assist in this matter by remaining open 24-hours a day for the next two days.  Clearly that place will be one to avoid for the moment though I suspect Fresh Market and Harris Teeter won’t be any different. It is impossible to ignore the sudden swell of people on the Island.  The bike paths now teem with cyclists, often congregations of entire families on bicycles, trycycles and tandems. I am yet surprised that there continue to be so may people walking on the beach.  I would find it irresistible to watch people flying by on their bicycles. Continue reading →

As days here go, this one was basically standard. I say this tongue-in-cheek. It was what might popularly be called “another ho-hum day in Paradise”.  It astounds me that in the context of Hilton Head Island that hackneyed quip actually has some substance to it.  As I flew back home on my bicycle along the beach around 1:30 p.m. this afternoon with the moderate north wind at my back, I recall thinking to myself that as uniformly glorious as almost every day here is, each day is nonetheless different.  You would never know it from the photographs I take that one day is dissimilar to  another, but they are always distinct.  For one thing the patterns of the tide are unique every day.  Today for example we saw what was almost a cavern carved into the beach at Burke’s Beach, something we’ve never seen in the past five years. And the extent of the tides changes all the time (the beach was exceptionally broad today). The clouds of course are perpetually inconstant. And even if I am wrong in proclaiming some perspicacity in the discernment of differences, what does it matter anyway!  I mean, how bad can it be that the sun is constantly shining in a blue dome, that the sunlight glistens on the Ocean, that the beach is spectacularly smooth!  I have yet to tire of this standard; and I can only imagine that ill health and old age will kill it for me, if and when I can no longer enjoy it.

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Any talent for shopping I may have thought to have squandered has now been restored.  And I am in earnest when I use “talent” and “shopping” in the same breath. Considering the obstacles and drudgery I have endured for the past two days while shopping at Harris Teeter, Fresh Market and Belk, the conviction of my instincts and the prosecution of my expertise has rewarded me with ample reason to commend myself.  I have been removed from the shopping scene for some time but I have at least momentarily returned with manifest enthusiasm. Quite frankly my shopping needs are not what they once were and it is probably only my recent separation from it which has heightened my come back. Revisiting the exploit has reaffirmed that shopping is not an undertaking for either the ill-informed or the faint of heart. It requires strength and stamina. It exacts the use of logic and the implementation of historical training.  It is a knowledge-based enterprise.  Shopping is serious business!  Shopping is a commercial transaction like any other and yet so often we ignore the most fundamental precepts involving money and things.  Contrary to its regular portrayal as a witless endeavour it actually requires some thought and precision. Continue reading →

Judging by the rigour of our routine activities we could conceivably be mistaken – albeit it facetiously – for boot camp candidates. We are up early; we bicycle for 3-4 hours daily; we eat properly and go to bed early. Our commitment to this enterprise is so consuming that it doesn’t occur to either of us to disrupt it; our focus borders on discipline. Neither have we any inclination to contaminate the model with idle distractions and social events. I won’t say that we are monastic but apart from the almost addictive exercise regime we have enough at our fingertips to fulfill our spiritual, social and artistic aspirations. I for example am entirely dedicated to writing, music and photography, all amateur hobbies I acknowledge but nonetheless sufficiently absorbing to defeat the need or desire for further diversion. Each of these pursuits draws upon the richness of our observation on the Island. The most we accede to otiose application is to watch Midsomer Murders on Netflix. Additionally we have long held the view that when visiting a place of retreat one should stay there and not use the occasion as a springboard to “see the world”.  There is a very real threat of having lots going on but nothing happening. It may resonate as a trite and confined posture but in my opinion it avoids the popular urgency to do everything before the end. In all things we must learn to adapt to the scope of our personal ambit and to savour the insight. This relative containment is in fact a cornerstone which allows for depth of awareness and expression.

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