My medical experiment began on May 10th. The object was to test the hypothesis that my medical condition (which I then characterized as heart disease, arthritis and spinal deterioration reflected mostly in numbness in my lower limbs and feet) might actually improve without drugs.
It is the Friday afternoon of the Victoria Day Weekend and the surge of energy is everywhere apparent! The excitement is happily fuelled by warm temperatures and brilliant sunshine. All infused elements have serendipitously combined for a favourable holiday weekend.
Every two weeks on Thursday afternoon our cleaning lady attends to clean our apartment. We make a point of absenting ourselves and use the occasion to go abroad for a day of leisure. By design the perambulation includes a meal which, because we seldom get going until shortly after mid-day, means a late lunch or an early dinner depending how far we travel. Our compass most frequently includes Cedar Cove Resort on White Lake, Ivy Lea Club on the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Town of Gananoque and the City of Kingston. Each has its appeal, variously promoted by the weather, our appetite or the geography.
It was one month ago we returned home to our beloved Almonte from our winter retreat on the Atlantic barrier island in South Carolina. The transition has been virtually effortless and generally gratifying. We have accomplished what we planned to do during this initial period; namely, income tax filings, financial planning, reuniting with family and friends, medical, eye and dental appointments and extending our residential apartment lease. Only once have we conducted the ceremony of an afternoon drive to the St. Lawrence Seaway but that will shortly become part of our weekly routine now that the gears of habit are re-engaged. Our global objective here is parochial when compared to the ambitions of most during the summer months but we rejoice in this small-town vernacular.
Mine is a placid life, an admittedly parochial, routine affair with little probability of discomposure. Each day of my life – even when examined abstractly over a period of a year or more – is by any stretch largely the same; namely, a sober existence marked by such affirmative traditions as early rising, regular exercise, improving private study, responsive communications with family and friends and a healthful diet. The wallpaper to this harmonious dalliance is classic music, jazz and the exotic accents of the BBC hosts and their array of worldwide reporters. Yet occasionally there develops a discombobulation, the infrequency of which exponentially increases its agitation. A case in point is paradoxically the very vehicle which supports my current narrative. I speak of my web site.
In an unrehearsed moment of synchronized lightheartedness as we hovered about the kitchen to finalize the preparations for this evening’s meal, we both announced how pleasant it would be to drink a frozen vodka Martini! No doubt because of the uncommonly cool air today, this Sunday has reminded me of an autumn Sunday. And that inevitably engenders fond memories of crackling fireplaces, grey tree branches tossed about in the wind and yearnings for drawing room coziness generally. The very sight of the sparkling Sherry decanter moves me! Earlier this morning we had cranked the heat on to remove the chill from the apartment. Nonetheless undeterred we went for our routine morning bicycle ride (complete with wool cardigan, jackets and gloves) along the nearby country roads; and afterwards when I went for a drive in my car to visit my elderly mother I insisted upon wearing my short pants (something I began to regret when standing in the icy wind by the gas pumps to fill the tank).
From what best I can recall my habit of taking an over-the-counter pain killer started in 1967 when I was studying Philosophy in undergraduate university at Glendon Hall, Toronto.
“The Platonists tell us, that the soul, during her residence in the body, contracts many virtuous and vicious habits, so as to become a beneficent, mild, charitable, or an angry, malicious, revengeful being; a substance inflamed with lust, avarice, and pride; or, on the contrary, brightened with pure, generous, and humble dispositions: that these and the like habits of virtue and vice, growing into the very essence of the soul, survive and gather strength in her after her dissolution: that the torments of a vicious soul in a future state, arise principally from those importunate passions which are not capable of being gratified without a body; and that on the contrary, the happiness of virtuous minds very much consists in their being employed in sublime speculations, innocent diversions, sociable affections, and all the ecstasies of passion and rapture which are agreeable to reasonable natures, and of which they gained a relish in this life.”
Excerpt From: Addison, Joseph. “The Tatler: By the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq.” Oxford Text Archive, Oxford University.
Saturday morning! I can’t explain it, but even after retirement, Saturday morning still elevates me! This is particularly so when as today the sun shone and there was not a cloud in the bright blue sky! Rather like listening to the atmospheric music of Erik Satie’s “Gymnopédies”. I did however suffer a modest dampening upon briefly recalling the disagreement I had had with my elderly mother last evening. But I was, at least upon awakening this morning, satisfied that my intransigence about returning her vacuum cleaner had triumphed and my general approach to the new day was one of refreshment not hesitation or regret. This, I was about to discover, was to be a short-lived buoyancy. But for the time being, ignorant as I was of my overhanging destiny, I prosecuted the morning ablutions without reserve and prepared myself for what I then anticipated to be a perfectly splendid Saturday. As I dressed I amused myself to contrive to purchase new white socks and to discard the old ones. White socks are like toothbrushes, common, hardly a luxury and certainly not something one should feel the necessity to keep forever. Long ago I discovered the unusually gratifying result of capitalizing upon such petty indulgences. Rejuvenation requires far less exertion than one might imagine; the simplest modification can afford incalculable fodder!
As a general rule, bumps, scrapes, tarnishes and tears are not a good thing. The illustration that springs to mind is that of a new car. Upon discovering a nick on your new car, do you ruefully regard it then gently rub an index finger over the offending score as though you could expectantly make the blemish gradually cease to exist, hoping against hope that it were but the unintended and serendipitous smudge of an airborne fowl? The phrase “wear and tear” (an undisguised import from the legal exclusions of warranty contracts) is hardly the answer! In an instant the integrity of your vehicle is compromised. Indeed the entire point of getting a new car is under siege! The spiritual heights of the impermanent flight are unceremoniously grounded. Cinderella’s vanishing carriage has nothing on the vaporization!