Judging by my calendar you wouldn’t think I had much to do today.  But the calendar is misleading. We have been wrapped up in unforeseen circumstances all day. Largely the buzz has centred around the negotiation of the sale of my mother’s house.  We have been in constant communication with our Realtor.  A small wrinkle – a peccadillo really – arose which thankfully we were able to subdue with minimal vexation. It was one of those emotionally charged items which, if the Parties were to have become entrenched, would have threatened to contaminate the entire transaction.  We were to our mutual credit able to rise above it.  Apart from waiting for the consequent procedural matters to unfold we seem headed in the right direction.

The second jolt in my day was a saccharin message from friend with whom I have what is proving to be a strained relationship.  Without making the mistake of engaging in caustic remarks, it is sadly a feature of many of my so-called friendships that they are turning sour.  It is quite possibly the result of my own recent changes that the disintegration has transpired but it still leaves me cold.  I am increasingly disinclined to favour humanity as a whole.  I find I am freely critical of others whenever the slightest provocation moves me.  Without the commercial motive, my manners are far less guarded.

The final surprise was a revolt by my mother.  When we informed her that her prized crystal chandeliers had been dismantled and delivered to my sister’s house for safe-keeping, mother got it into her head that the act represented a unilateral interference by us without her prior consent (notwithstanding that she had previously made it abundantly clear that the fixtures were excluded from the house sale).  This exceedingly annoying insurgency prompted me to delineate in no uncertain terms the many reasons for the qualification of the list price of the house.  A shouting match ensued between us along with some very hot words on my part especially.  Years of my having submitted to my mother’s ridiculous protestations brought the house down around her today.  I no longer have either the patience or the inclination to suffer her doltishness.  She continued nonetheless to display and magnify her presumption of superiority and deference, both of which I challenged with equal vigour.  More than ever I am convinced that she is lapsing into the piteous state of dementia and her opinion on anything is to be neither trusted nor acted upon.

Even though these confrontations leave their scars and wear me down, I am nonetheless determined to put them aside.  By casting aside the human race as a whole I am much less restrained in embracing my own company and interests.  There is so much about my private affairs that enthrals me that I am not prepared to compromise for the sake of etiquette.  I have adopted a diminished view of the necessity to keep what should be discarded.  Perhaps my historical sense of allegiance was a mere deceit.  Now I could care less about its characterization.  Time is running out and I haven’t the desire to burn it up wastefully.  The frozen truth is that I have never been happier (and that includes the strength of character to leave the rubbish in my wake).  The two of us have yet much to accomplish and we are quite content to dedicate ourselves to that task.  As for the rest, Spare me!

It is a small compliment to the legal profession that its practitioners are learned in the art of taradiddle, the underhanded capacity to twist words to achieve a desired result.  Certainly the ability is honoured by those who are the subject of litigious proceedings but otherwise seldom does the transgression acquire the flavour of skill over cunning.  Nonetheless the technique (or, if you must, the duplicity) is a useful artifice when dealing with those who mistakenly insist upon their own propriety in the face of contrary rationality. I am thinking of my recent dealings with my elderly mother whose grasp of things is daily declining but who nevertheless persists in imagining that she alone holds the reins of control over her affairs and destiny.

In an attempt to deal tactfully with what amounts to contradiction of my mother, I excuse the so-called “little white lies” on the theory that while they disguise the facts they importantly blunt their thrust.   Like it or not the frozen truth is not something everyone prefers to know. Where some window dressing adequately lends the appearance of pleasantness to rebuttal I hardly think it an offence to dilute the candour accordingly.

A common example of my deceit is that associated with the cost of services. For someone like my mother who is almost a century old the current cost of everything is under constant attack.  If she were to know the precise amount spent for her care, nourishment and residency she would be in a state of utter disbelief. The glaring exception to this broad observation is the amount she eagerly expends on Sisley make-up from Holt Renfrew but that largesse she dismisses as an imperative.

Another occasion which commands less than condemning truth is that associated with the state of my mother’s house which is for sale now that she has (against her relentless objections) moved to a retirement residence.  The house has an unmistakeable odour of tobacco, the unwanted product of my mother having smoked cigarettes inside the house.  The stench permeates the remaining household fabrics (curtains, sheers) and even the interior wooden features of the structure.  It was so bad that the plastic bags mother kept in her kitchen closet smelled of smoke.  Whenever we visited my mother we routinely washed our clothes afterwards to rid ourselves of the lingering infection. The realtor has frequently commented upon the contamination as a detriment to the market value of the place.  Another drawback is the age of the house. While the systems and out-fittings of the house are generally workable and liveable, after fifty years some updating is in order. Again my mother is in denial on that point and she resists any attempt to suppress the appeal and price of the house on that basis.  It is for this reason among others that I seemingly collaborate with mother whenever she rants about “not selling unless I get my price”.  I manage to appear cooperative on the point without sanctioning the assertion.  I am supported in my obfuscation by the fact that “my price” is in fact over the list price and even beyond the spread suggested by two independent appraisals.  I reckon that if she can be so obviously carefree with her details I am entitled to a degree of indiscretion as well.

Normally the subterfuge which I practice on my mother is harmless and without any substantive repercussion.  However in the past twenty-four hours I came close to being caught off-base and risked being exposed.  Without having given adequate consideration to my mother’s most recent request for attendance at her bank to view the contents of her safe deposit box, I unwittingly agreed to take her there this morning. I forgot that mother invariably wanders to the teller’s wicket to update her savings account passbook.  And I speculated that she would at the same time make enquiry about the balance of her chequing account.  Lately I have misled my mother about the balance of her accounts because of the many expenses she has incurred to effect the move to the retirement residence and to pay her initial residency fees.  I had anticipated that the dwindling bank balances would be adequately replenished by the amount of the mandatory annual RRIF withdrawal which I had orchestrated with her financial advisor.  I overlooked that the deposit was scheduled to be made on the very morning of our visit to the bank.  As of last evening, when the pressing nature of the matter dawned upon me, there was no evidence in her RRIF account that anything had been withdrawn nor in her bank account that anything had been deposited.  I went into a moderate state of panic reminiscent of what a child experiences when discovered in corpus delicti.

Overnight I began contriving plans to cover my tracks.  I had to date accommodated my devious secrecy about my mother’s affairs by acquiescing to her blatant distortion of the numbers relating to her moving and residency costs.  But I could see it would be a challenge to explain an account of $9,000 which she had estimated between $900 – 950.

In keeping with the proven philosophy that a blizzard of information can succeed to baffle almost anyone, I determined to provide my mother with precisely what she wanted but in far greater detail than she might have anticipated receiving.  Technically I would be coming clean but my hope was that the barrage of information would cloud the absorption of it. Thus I proceeded to print the last thirty days’ transactions for her chequing account, savings account, RRIF accounts and investment account.  In the end the collection amounted to reams of paper.

I would have been less than hopeful that the tactic would work had I not discovered mere moments before my departure that the large deposit from the RRIF account had successfully made its way into my mother’s chequing account.  Now I was armed not only with quantity of paper but also the charm of numbers to decorate the presentation!  And when as anticipated my mother questioned the balance of her accounts, I produced a succession of papers which heralded the significant balances and effectively minimized the importance of the numerous debits to the accounts.  Some selective distraction proved useful to divert attention from in-depth enquiry upon any particular entry.

It is imperative to keep in mind when digesting these nefarious particulars that there is nothing inherently wrong with the truth of any of the facts other than that my mother imagines the truth to be otherwise.  It is only my effort to shelter her from the abrasion of the truth that prevents me from wanting to share it with her.  For example, her residency fees are far greater than she imagines but it is an expense which she can comfortably sustain and it is not an expense to which she is not entitled.  So while I came dangerously close to having to shake her to the foundation with the disturbing reality of her circumstances, I was happily spared the confrontation and no one is worse for it.  Besides no matter how annoyingly candid one might be, nothing will change.  Far better to turn a blind eye and indulge in a bit of taradiddle.  Phew!  That was close!

All day I have peculiarly been reminded of places and things which, after four decades in Almonte, reflect where I started.  It’s as though I have ended up where I began.

This is an oddity which is the subject of many artistic expressions though my focus is less upon discovery than upon the serendipitous circle of life’s experiences.

“You shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our journeying
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
~ Eliot, T. S. in ‘Little Gidding V’, from ‘Four Quartets’ 1942

My first awakening to the fortuity materialized as we set off on our bicycles for an early summer morning ride.  When we turned off King Street onto Argyle Street I was within 100 yards of my first little house on St. George Street.  I have seldom ventured along St. George Street since I left it in 1984 to move to the other side of Town where I bought my second house in Almonte and where I lived comfortably until just last year (March, 2014).  This detail prompted the further observation that I am now living on Jamieson Street not only close to my first house but also back on the same side of Town where I began.  It is also remarkable that my current street address is named after R. A. Jamieson, QC whose office I filled when I initially began practicing law in Almonte. Additional exploration into the alcoves of my past reminded me that the first house I rented on Martin Street North (owned by Rev. Geo. Bickley of St. Paul’s Anglican Church where I first attended worship service) was on the other side of Town so I have effectively bounced from one side of the Town to the other over the past forty years.  And once again I am renting a property instead of owning it, culminating as I commenced.  Pointedly the property we now rent is owned by John and Donna Kerry;  John was my most influential first Client and an unflagging supporter throughout my entire practice.  To compound the swirl of events, John Kerry reported to me years ago that it was R. A. Jamieson, QC who materially helped John when he first arrived in Almonte to launch his own career.

I cannot ignore a further coincidence which harkens back to the springtime of my life in Almonte.  That is the profound relationship I had with the late J. C. Smithson who not only supported my application to the local Masonic Lodge but was also the Registrar of Deeds with whom I spent so many hours throughout my law practice.  Lately I had the honour to speak on behalf of Jack’s family at his funeral at St. Paul’s Anglican Church.  Jack and his family lived on St. George Street when I met them.

Following our bike ride we went to Mississippi Golf Club for breakfast.  It was there in June of 1976 on a spectacular summer evening that I first met and dined with Messrs. Michael J. Galligan, QC and Alan D. Sheffield (now of the Superior Court of Justice) who hired me to join them in the practice of law in Almonte.  The echo of that happy day has often rung in my mind.  As fate would have it this morning we were introduced to the House Director of the Club who, when he asked whether we were enjoying our meal, I rejoined that I was in fact savouring the experience much as I had done for the past forty years.

Afterwards we directed ourselves to Ottawa where we first checked the now vacant house of my elderly mother who has recently moved to a retirement residence in Ottawa South off The Driveway.  While most of my mother’s surplus possessions have been absorbed by my sister, pointedly I have obtained many of the very things which I gave my parents over the past many years.  This pleases me because the things I bought them as gifts were items I personally admired. I have for example two paintings (one of Toronto Cabbagetown and another of a rural scene), along with a tiny silver ornament of a sparsely clad nymph carrying a faggot of sticks and a Henry Birks & Sons carriage clock. Frequently my mother has commented that she wanted me to have those things “when I am gone”.  As we march ever forward to the inevitable end of life these once remote considerations are now at hand. Again the events and the gifts have come full circle.

The other and perhaps most significant revolution that occurs to me is the constancy of my sense of happiness.  It seems that wherever I am in life I am convinced that it is the happiest time of all.  This is no histrionic account but rather a sober and determined view that life could be no better.  A mere glance at my current circumstances discloses what for me is inarguably the height of munificence.  As I am wont to say, life owes me nothing.  While tragically there are some who feel they have been robbed of fortune, that fateful day has yet come for me.  If and when it does I hope that I shall have the good character to recall my present sense of gratitude.

Although I am fascinated occasionally to read stark criticism of revered principles and institutions (for example Thomas Paine’s refutation of organized religion in The Age of Reason or Edward Gibbon’s attack upon Oxford University in Memoirs of my Life and Writings) generally speaking I am most at ease in low light surrounded by mahogany.  I conjecture that my magnetism to muted illumination and imperishable hardwood speak to my preference for restraint and the enduring elements of life though I confess my ostensible bias may be a calculated deception.  Long ago I learned what it is to paint a picture, to reflect the shine of what appears to work for others, even something as seemingly inconsequential as creating an ambiance.  There is security in ornamentation.

The risk of course is that one begins to believe the impression one seeks to project.  This is unfortunate not primarily because it is rooted in image more than substance but rather because it tends to distance oneself from a dynamic notion of one’s inner self and the external world.  We are after all what we think. Besides it is such a pity to choose impenetrable hardness over vulnerability if the price to be paid is perpetual limitation. Those who abhor disinfecting sunshine and who are entrenched in tradition foster an undeniable petrification of the mind.

Quite apart from how we fashion the comfort level of our existence I am discovering incrementally that the real thinkers in life – the discoverers, the inventors – are not necessarily geniuses but rather people who are open to a new way of doing business or who imagine what is nothing more glamorous than performing a task more easily. Relinquishing one’s customary moorings and setting oneself adrift is an adventure destined to evolve unpredictably but there is at least the possibility of spirited enterprise. Tapping into that underground vein and its precious product can be as simple as believing what one sees in both oneself and others.  As transparent as the method may sound it is nonetheless a daunting undertaking as there is inevitably the chance of surprise on all sides.  It also requires work.  The staid comfort of the drawing room is not especially conducive to resourcefulness and daring.

As a student of law I was trained to seek and rely upon authority. This may have the appearance of cultivating an unimaginative interpretation of human affairs but in the hands of a competent and persuasive individual even edicts written in stone admit to mutability. Recent pronouncements of the Supreme Court of the United States of America upon such topics as one man-one vote,  pregnancy discrimination, gay marriage, the Confederate flag and free speech, religious accommodation to wear a hijab and religious freedom in prison are examples of zestfulness and positive attitude.  While it is arguable that left-leaning liberalism is the product of empowerment I prefer to see the division of the legislature and the judiciary as the very model of governance.

The buoyancy of purely academic reasoning is however under constant threat by the turbulence and violence of the vast sea upon which it bobs.  How much more alluring it is to seek the sheltered cove far from the disturbances and ferocity of nature.  Straight lines and few accessories afford such ample constancy. The retreat of one’s mind is often more comfortable in low light and mahogany.

Today is June 30th.  We have already exhausted three of our seven months in Canada this year.  It has been an action-packed ride since our return from Hilton Head Island. Our time has been devoted almost exclusively to matters of business affairs in particular to those of my elderly mother.  As I have openly expressed, I am content to have done so.  In fact I am the first to acknowledge that submerging myself in the responsibilities harkens back to the latter and more agreeable days of my law practice when I could by force of my lengthy experience effortlessly direct traffic with assurance. Admittedly the commitment isn’t entirely altruistic; my anticipatory inheritance is not without import. But largely my satisfaction is as pure as the accomplishment of a game well-played. I have synthesized my cultivated and innate talents which naturally sustain my enthusiasm.  All the cards have yet to be played but the enterprise currently has the hallmark of inter vivos estate planning. My impatient obsession with the future is conveniently assuaged by the performance of these pragmatic undertakings.

To be brutally frank there is an incontrovertible complacency in having expiated my winter lassitude by directing my mind to these needs.  Were circumstances to have been otherwise I am not certain that I would harbour such smugness and conceit as I now do.  Indeed esteemed family friends have been kind to honour me with praise for what has been done.

I further flatter myself that I have eagerly addressed what for some people are the disturbing realities of getting old.  Never have I dodged the candour of the situation by camouflaging it with innuendo or other excuses for what demands immediate attention.  My fervour for forethought may have partially accelerated my agenda but on balance I feel the duties were addressed with opportune timing. We’ve the balance of the summer and the autumn to wind things up for my mother to accomplish the overall translation of her immovable estate to liquid assets and to effect a partial distribution of certain of her surplus possessions, things which were sinking into neglect in any event.  I wager that at almost 90 years of age my mother must derive some fulfillment in overseeing this transition.

Coincidentally we marked the mid-year point by dining at our tiny apartment with our erstwhile traveling companions. The meal was a repeat of my standard fare but the robust conversation uplifted the tedium of the gastronomy.  A hint was dropped by the country gentleman that a new pet may be on the horizon.  Seemingly he is missing the occasion to go for regular walks on the rural road and I suspect the improving companionship of a dog is in his blood.  We have only entertained these two in our apartment since we moved here about a year ago.  Frankly if I never career another dinner for the remainder of my life I shall be content.  When not drinking booze the accommodation of guests is strictly a duty.  And it is a mistake to suggest that dining in trumps the expense of dining out.  By the time one tallies the cost of extraordinary local ingredients, fine wines and liquors the margin is considerably reduced.  Not to mention the wide sphere of travel involved in collecting the stuff; and of course the cleaning up afterwards.

This is the closest I’ve been to concluding the outstanding family administration matters which could and should have been addressed for some time.  My mother resisted as long as possible ridding herself of her house. Imperceptibly I have accomplished the transfer of her portfolio to a professional advisor.  To punctuate the necessity of planning for unforeseen circumstances we have endured two deaths (family member and a friend) within as many days.  We’ll see what the next quarter brings!

It is a well known incongruity of evidence in a court of law that if five people watch the same video of a car accident there will be five different accounts of what happened – including who is to blame.  The details of the “scene of the crime” are seldom uniform.  The variation of reporting is even more diverse if the camera were located in different positions when the accident was filmed. While this perversion is of interest to defence counsel in particular, its lesson insinuates a broader sphere.  In a nutshell, we all see the world differently and from a unique viewpoint. Unlike the forensic plight to determine the unqualified truth of a matter, the philosophic admission of the diversity of perspective does more to enhance our differences than to dilute them.

Recognizing that each of us has a different frame of mind need not however distance us one from the other.  Indeed it should rather assist us to get closer. It is after all only when we assume that everyone thinks like us that we get into trouble.  First, we are inevitably disappointed.  Second, such stubbornness only contributes to narrow-mindedness.  We effectively remove ourselves from an expanding experience if we imagine there is only one way down the river.

When I was in Paris, France about fifty years ago I met another young student. He opened our conversation much as I suspect students would do today.  I anticipated that he would ask me what I was studying; instead he said, “Quelle est votre perspective?”  The question was of course more than a social nicety.  It captured the deeper exploration into the way one looks at the world.  What each of us sees and understands depends so much upon the medium through which we view it, whether scientific, medical, philosophical, artistic, economic and so on.  A perspective is both a beginning and an end. The result of our view of the world springs from the manner in which we look at it.  This further reminds us that seeing the world from another’s perspective is enlarging.  It affords us the opportunity to see beyond our inherent blinkers.

I have suggested in my previous anecdote that our vision of the world is the product of our education.  There is naturally much more that goes into the formulation of our perspective.  Aside from the obvious genetic influences there is that huge arena of personal experience which does much to colour and magnify what we see.  This again is a reminder to each of us that, if we pretend to understand the world and the people in it, we must learn more about what they have experienced.  Too often we content ourselves with the camouflage of social acceptability to permit us to strengthen our comprehension of life, a task which commands far greater analysis of detail than any defence counsel might ever undertake of the facts of a case.  As much as has been advanced concerning the merits of knowing oneself, I prefer to maintain that the greater adventure is to acquire a knowledge of another man’s perspective.  It is an enterprise which is calculated to astound and enlighten.  Without exception the exploits and inner views of another human being are assured both to entertain and to illuminate.

After having opened the house for Lorand of Quality Carpet Cleaners we wiled away the three hours he said it would take to clean the place by doing some piddling shopping at Walmart then insinuated ourselves into the cloistered urban garden of Lapointe’s Restaurant for a summer evening meal.  The weather was ideal for al fresco dining, a relieving breeze after a hot day, expressive cloud formations and a clear azure sky.  The crescent moon was remarkably silver even early in the evening.  As we waited for our martinis to arrive we indolently stared at a sparrow ripping leaves from the nearby trees presumably for a nest and marvelled at nature’s genetics.  A bold chipmunk scampered to and fro on the patio, darting between tables and back into the peripheral bushes.

Our leisure was well earned.  The day had been spent with the realtor staging the house for sale.  We had afterwards shopped for a few items for my mother’s new apartment. The carpet cleaning was the penultimate duty.  After that we went downtown to mother’s apartment to deliver the stores to her.  I am fully satisfied that all the effort put into relocating mother from her house to the apartment is not only justified but well executed.  I can’t think of any better arrangement for her on the heels of her 89th birthday.  The choreography of the move represents to me a signal accomplishment and one which I felt the necessity to celebrate.

I am smug about other things too.  Everything about the management of our personal affairs leaves me glowing as well.  As I have lately been wont to remind my mother over her constant objections to the move to an apartment, we have practiced what we preach.  It is a spin-off of my mother’s move that our own little apartment will be the beneficiary of prized possessions arising from my mother’s downsizing; viz., several original oil paintings, a small mahogany side table, an elegant Persian rug and a magnificent Sligh grandfather clock.  The clock is a tremendous gift for me as I adore time pieces.  Oddly it was my sister and her husband who bought the clock for my mother but neither of them wanted it.

It pleases me also that my sister and her husband will be getting some fine Canadiana from my mother’s collection.  I have no doubt that they are as delighted as we are to have the new acquisitions.  My sister is making some fairly drastic changes to accommodate the pieces.  She seems not only content but also enthusiastic to swap certain of her furnishings for the ones from my mother’s place.  Because we have inherited far fewer items our only adjustment is relocating some furnishings and paintings within the apartment though considering its small size the task was not without its challenges. Although I hated to disturb what we had originally done I am confident that when the grandfather clock arrives it will all fit together properly.

Lest my focus upon material things disguises my deeper sentiments I know we are lucky to enjoy good health.  All around us people are succumbing to illnesses, each of them coming entirely unexpectedly (a reminder of how quickly our tread upon the flowery paths of prosperity can change to the sear and yellow leaf of old age).  Likewise I recall the advantage of my father having lived to 95 years of age and that the remainder of my immediate family and those dearest to me are yet whinnying among us.  It is the conglomerate of these important features which lend a decided bounce to my step every day.  It is no small bonus that we anticipate our departure to Hilton Head Island, SC for the winter; and that we may be doing it on a new set of wheels.

It is oft repeated that the winding down of one’s clock gathers speed with its amortization.  It is an adage that reflects the urgency of our impending ruin and one which besides has the authority of science.

The dwindling of time sparks a greed for the commodity or at least an earnestness to pack as much as possible into what remains.  The disposition compels me for example to address my more intimate (though admittedly frivolous) goals before the precious resource is exhausted.  It requires of me but a hurried glance backwards to reveal what have been my simmering though much neglected innermost aspirations. There are only a few dreams I hope yet to accomplish and none of them is especially exalted. There isn’t for example any insistence to travel the world, to write a book or climb a mountain.  Indeed apart from one remaining ambition (the detail of which is too impossibly trite to bear repetition) I am perfectly satisfied to indulge myself in the comparatively unimaginative liberties of getting out of bed after eight o’clock in the morning, lingering over breakfast while writing my endless codswallop, going for a bicycle ride along a country road on a balmy summer morn, getting the car washed, visiting family and friends for a cup of coffee, reading an improving book and going to bed with a unobstructed conscience.  Clearly those preoccupations are worthy of any man or woman and are ones which anyone should be happy to confess. The placated condition is further evidence of my conviction that life owes me nothing.  This stark admission does however only serve to heighten the significance of appeasing my remaining appetite.  I don’t want even the smallest grain of sand to slip through my fingers. In my haste to quell the particles of remnant temptation I have succeeded to swell what was once mere whimsical hope into manifest enterprise.

There remains in particular the fulfillment of one fanciful notion which I have nurtured over the years.  Its incubation was in my undergraduate days in Toronto when I regularly flew down Avenue Road from the Glendon Hall.  It was a time of my life when nothing but adventure and promise figured.  As with so many hopes its realization was at the time out of bounds but I never relinquished this one ideal.  It has lingered like the memory of a favourite line of poetry, haunting me to this day.  Paradoxically its mundaneness is the author of both its neglect and its attraction, no doubt more of that business about squeezing the last drop of liquor from the fruit of life.

While the anticipated accomplishment of this pesky purpose hardly qualifies as a journey’s end, it will nonetheless stand as one more thing off my bucket list.  Once again nature teaches us how to die.  Until then I rejoice in being able at last to translate the ambition into fruition.