Although I put up a moderate struggle on and off for the better part of an hour, the featherbed held me captive until 9:00 o’clock this morning. My indolence was inexcusable! I hadn’t even the defence of saying I went to bed late last evening;  I didn’t.  In fact I was in bed earlier than usual, something approaching ten o’clock at the latest.  I can only urge that my regular daily bicycling for the past three months has at last caught up with me.

In any event, what does it matter!  It’s not as though I have to go to work or that I had promised but failed to be somewhere.  This is what one does at my stage of life  – nothing!  I conducted my usual morning purifications with customary precision.  It requires labour to get through the first waking hour of the day until the pain killers kick in and until I am able to facilitate the movement of my lower back.  Modest stretching of my limbs helps.  Long gone are the days when I began the day with one hundred push-ups.

My ablutions accomplished, I gingerly descended the wooden staircase in my sock feet to the main floor, first connecting my iPhone to my MacBook Pro to recharge it for the upcoming day before going to the kitchen. Through the living room and kitchen windows I could see we were headed for another warm and sunny day.  The blue sky was everywhere evident behind the sea pines. The standard breakfast preparations commenced, a bowl of California Mandarin orange wedges, sliced banana and black berries. Contemporaneously the dark roast coffee was brewing. Armed with my bowl of fruit, a paper serviette, small fork and cup of strong black coffee I eased my way to the computer. There I checked email, bank and investment accounts and tweaked a piece I had been composing last evening.  While I am not particularly conscious of the serenity of my awakening, I know in retrospect that not every morning in the past was so peaceful.  How soon the recollection of pain evaporates!  There was a time not so long ago when each morning began with a groan and a philippic.

It was another hour before I completed the subsequent courses of my breakfast, a succession of protein and grains.  The high tide for Calibogue Cay was 2:05 p.m. which meant that my late start of the day jeopardized cycling on the beach until the afternoon. I partially filled the gap by lounging in the sun by the pool for almost an hour.  The sun was terribly warm, almost hot, and I relinquished my repose. We then decided to use the available opportunity to complete our grocery shopping. The local grocery store stocks superb provisions.

After the shopping and on our way into Sea Pines we asked the guard at the gate whether we might use the entrance which we understood was reserved for local property owners.  To our surprise the officer advised that we, as long-term residents, may use either lane.  This is fortuitous as it means we are able to avoid the line-ups which go with the issuance of day passes for temporary interlopers.  I mention this banal detail because in its small way it lubricates the ease of life on the Island.

Once home I set off on my bicycle for South Beach with the intention of joining the beach at Lands End then cycling northward with the wind at my back.  I had discovered that the wind was relatively strong at 13 mph out of the southwest. For whatever reason as I wound my way under the languid hanging moss from Calibogue Cay to South Beach I chose to go only as far as Tower Beach. It turns out to have been a wise decision.  When I proceeded along the boardwalk onto the beach it was immediately apparent that the tide had receded insufficiently for bicycling.  No matter, I was happy to plop myself on the edge of the dunes, putting myself in direct line with the blazing sun in the southern sky.  I lay down on the sand and propped my head with my shoes on the front wheel of my reclining bicycle.  The strong wind abraded my face with stinging particles of sand.  But it could not have bothered me less.  The sun was warm and the Ocean was crashing within 100 feet of where I lay. The wind was so strong that it caused the tops of the waves to be thrown back with a spray.  There were small children playing nearby at the edge of the water, building a castle and a moat. Their father sat in a beach chair watching them.

Subsequently I resolved to pedal home.  My initial attempt at cycling on the beach was unsuccessful.  I sunk into the sand every twenty feet or so.  I turned back, thinking I would have to abandon my project of cycling to Beach Club in the late afternoon sun on the beach.  But as I reversed my steps I reflected that perhaps the beach would be drier and firmer further along as it is often mushy only at this remote end of the beach.  So I retraced my steps and walked my bicycle along the beach until it widened and appeared more suitable.  And it was.  With the strong wind at my back I sailed to Beach Club, admiring the white capped waves and blue sky reflection in the water lingering on the shore.  The trip through the golf course to Calibogue Club was extraordinarily pleasant and I repeatedly exclaimed to myself what a superb day it was!

The measure of a triumph is by no means universal. This is particularly so when the components of one’s daily activity hardly approach clocking in at the Forum for an afternoon of diversion with the African feline set.  In fact so remote are the details of my life from anything resembling challenge or adventure that it must per force appear quite presumptuous of me even to consider denominating my goings-on as a victory of any description whatsoever.  Nevertheless I do. I have always accommodated my trifling affairs by reasoning that they are what life has afforded me; and within that vernacular I am entitled to ascribe any small comparative achievement I so desire.  As some brainy bird has said, “It’s all relative!”

So while I hesitate to launch headlong into this matter of piffling victories for fear of representing myself as entirely shallow, the facts are the facts and I must relate them as I see them.  Take for example hair, not normally considered by most to be an especially compelling subject.  I must however divert my learned reader’s attention from the strict focus upon the res in question and ask instead that you allow the persuasion of metaphor to enlarge upon the otherwise cornball topic.  Although I wouldn’t go so far as to attribute biblical proportions to hair as Samson and Delilah may have done, it is I believe arguable that hair in modern society has its poetic appeal.  The appeal is traditionally aligned with youth and beauty (more of that metaphysical stuff) and as such it would normally be beyond the scope of someone my age.  Call it bravado or arrogance or unqualified silliness, but I decided several months ago that I wanted a new hair style.  I initiated the undertaking when we arrived on the Island.  In a nutshell, the plan was to develop what might jokingly be called the “bowl” look, you know: the way one’s hair would look if a bowl had been put on one’s head, then the hair were cut below the rim.  I put the proposal to my local hair architect.  Somewhat to my surprise he embraced the idea without any apparent reservation.  Arguably he could care less; but I believe he thought it might pass as fashionable even for someone of my vintage.  I later noted with an instant of stinging regret that the proposed cut may even have loosely resembled the stylist’s own, but I let it go.

Our first run at the style seemed to work well.  The finite lines on the side were visible with some effort.  It would after all require time for the distinction between the length of the top and the bottom to become evident. My hair stylist said as much and we cheerfully coordinated our next appointment to give further force to the project.  When we met again three weeks later matters took an unexpected turn for the worse.  In a frenzy to share the mundane details of our lives (as hairdressers and patrons are apparently wont to do with sometimes startling liberality), I failed to reiterate my ambitions and the stylist completely forgot what he had previously pioneered.  In the result he smoothed out the faint demarcation between the top and bottom cuts and in an instant I was restored to where I had been in the past as though nothing had changed!

Because the devastation wasn’t immediately apparent, it wasn’t until I returned home that I realized the mission had been effectively abandoned. There was naturally no point in doing anything about it at the time.  But I certainly resolved that upon my subsequent return I would avoid falling into the contaminating chumminess of our prior congress and emphasize in the clearest of terms what I proposed.  This I did three weeks later.  The stylist was obliged to concede the oversight but he knew as well that no amount of remorse would reverse the loss.  So we just charged ahead and did what could be done to restore the previous status quo; that is, the definitive line between the longer top and the shorter bottom.  Because his previous work had done so much to eliminate this much desired distinction, we were once again at the mercy of time to cultivate what was only within the power of nature to do.

This brings me to the subsequent and latest visit with my hair stylist. That was yesterday. Fastened as I was to the “once burnt, twice shy” theorem, I spared no subtlety when restating to him what I wanted and what I expected. With predictable assiduity he applied himself to the fulfillment of these objectives.  The effluxion of time had enabled the desired definition and it is thus that I proclaim a victory.  So apparent was the advance of the collaborative enterprise that the stylist and I have agreed to rendez-vous one last time before I leave the Island for the season.  This final meeting promises to be the crowning touch!  The goal will have been won!

Now on the heels of that small victory it must seem unlikely that I should have the benefit of yet another in a short space of time.  Yet I do!  Last evening as I was playing my new keyboard the bench beneath me slowly collapsed. Although it was not my immediate conclusion, a subsequent examination and analysis of the bench revealed what was unquestionably a manufacturer’s assembly defect.  Were it not for the assembly error the device would have performed without trouble.  I was now faced with the task of resolving the issue.

I placed a dining room chair in the position of the former bench but my interest in playing the keyboard had by then dissipated.  I was in the grip of a dilemma!  I went to bed. But I could not sleep. My resolve was to return the bench to the retailer the following morning but I hadn’t worked through in my mind the many possible ramifications of doing so.  In this age of on-line retailing I wondered whether the retailer would take what for him might be the convenient path of referring me directly to the manufacturer for satisfaction.  The retailer had made it clear when I bought the keyboard a month ago that his price was the same as the on-line price which made me speculate he may now wish to extend the fact to embrace after-sale concerns. I dismissed that possible eventuality by reasoning that in view of what was likely the modest price of the bench I would in any event get a new one to replace it, to hell with the minimal cost of the other.  I did however insulate my pride by fashioning that if that were the predicament in which I found myself I would make it clear to the retailer that I had no intention of repeating my initial error in dealing with him, and that I would purchase the replacement bench elsewhere (though I hadn’t any idea where that might be).  It then occurred to me that the retailer may not even have a replacement.  This in turn led me to consider whether he would be good enough to arrange for the return of the defective product to the manufacturer on my behalf.  Then I became distressed about the timing – we were leaving the Island within a matter of weeks.  Would the replacement from the manufacturer have to be sent to Canada?  And what about Customs?  Would I have duty to pay on it?  And what if I had declared it already?  Double duty?  Should I deduct the cost from my Declaration upon our return?  And what was the cost?  Had the bench been included in the price of the keyboard?  What if the retailer attempted to correct the bent hinge of the damaged bench?  I wouldn’t accept it – it might weaken the strength of the metal!  I had to have a new one and that was all there was to it!  At any price!

These increasingly bizarre problems churned over and over again in now my enfeebled mind.  At last I must have fallen asleep as it was after eight o’clock this morning when I awoke to the realization that the time had come to set in motion my much rehearsed Return Policy Statement.  Almost instantly I was haunted by all possible outcomes but thankfully the moment of reckoning was so close as to limit amplification. We determined the retailer opened business at ten o’clock as I had expected.  By ten o’clock I had completed my standard breakfast ritual and we were on our way, damaged bench repackaged in its original cardboard box, all now in the back seat of the car.

Upon entering the retailer’s premises and after exchanging the usual pleasantries concerning one’s health and the weather, he quizzically enquired about my concern. I provided a brief summary of the problem whereupon he seized a new bench and put it into my hands without question or hesitation.  The many imagined complications dissolved in an instant!  Another victory!

If that weren’t enough for one day, upon returning home I received an email from a colleague who, in addition to applauding my literary talents (incontestable music to any writer’s ears), affirmed his support of my recent political observations which I had shared with him and his wife.  I could hardly believe my continuing good fortune!  We ornamented the numerous advantages of the day by getting ourselves onto our bicycles and pedalling for close to three hours on the open, brilliantly sunny beach under a perfectly clear cerulean sky.

“Uniform” is perhaps too strong a word for the less severe instance of demeanour that I intend to address.  I want something stronger than appearance but perhaps with more intention, such as “bearing” or “carriage”, maybe even “comportment”.  You see the thing is that I want to encompass everything from the business suit to popular fashion.

The British aristocracy was famous for its costumes.  There was something for the morning, the afternoon and the evening; fox hunting, polo and cricket.  Where they left off the military took it up.  It is impossible to watch any movie from the early Hollywood days (when every actor oddly spoke with a British accent) that didn’t include distinguishing apparel for both the ladies and the gentlemen.

In my lifetime I have had my own parade of outfits, beginning with “Number 1” dress at boarding school, where we also had the mandatory highland dress for the cadet corps.  In later life as a professional legal advisor I cultivated the stock three-piece suit and watch chain.  I was fortunate to dip into the world of evening wear when attending The Liguanea Club in Kington, Jamaica when it was a still a strictly private members club. The consummation of the dedication was however the Masonic Lodge which provided endless opportunities for variation to even the less than creative mind.

As might be expected there is a cost associated with these indulgences, something which mitigates against the absorption even assuming one has the occasion on which to use the outfits.  As fond as I am of matters sartorial, my diminishing social involvement has perhaps conveniently coincided with my expanding waistline which in turn puts me off these expensive habits.  There can be no doubt that vanity plays a considerable rôle in these affairs. I still maintain a modest semblance of propriety by regularly sporting a silk scarf in the cooler months of the year but even that pretension has taken a back seat in view of our recent hibernation in South Carolina.  As well my determination to leave the professional world forever has made me rather reluctant to attend even semi-formal events.  The model now is strictly comfort. Gone are the days of tailor-made plaid trousers.  They went with the Bonnie Prince Charlie jacket and the kilt, along with all the other accessories.

Apart from having laundered my bedclothes and bath towels today (as I do here every Monday morning) I have done nothing for the entire day other than eat, read, play the piano keyboard and sleep.  I snoozed in the large tan leather chair this morning after breakfast and again on the monstrous sectional couch this afternoon after lunch.  While I dozed I heard the crashing pine cones, tossed by the unusually forceful winds from the surrounding sea pines onto the wooden deck.  The winds have ushered in clear air to push aside the rain and clouds we had this morning.

The inclement weather was my pretext for remaining indoors but it killed me to do so.  This afternoon after the sky cleared the blue vault constantly beckoned me and wore upon my morning guise.  It goes entirely against my grain to have no enterprise, to divert myself only by my imagination, to separate myself from industry to introspection and thought. I am  however bound to confess I am pleased to have done so.  The piano for example requires time as much as study to foster inspiration.  I am still adjusting to the novelty of the keyboard sounds and the light touch of the keys. I have sadly not enlarged my repertoire.  On the literary front I finally attacked James Joyce’s monumental “Ulysses” which admittedly may in part explain my daytime somnolence.

It is so like me to tie myself in knots about not “doing” anything. I seemingly have to be on the go at all times, jumping from one scheme to another.  At least I can report that I had the anticipated conversation with our financial advisor to get that matter out of the way.  I can use that heroic accomplishment to appease my anxiety.  On the other hand, now that most of the day is behind me and the opportunity to do anything different is all but exhausted, I am content not to have submitted to those unreasoned urges and to have stayed put for once.  Inertia after all is a dichotomous  condition – never moving or never stopping.

Since our arrival on the Island we have relentlessly prosecuted our original plan to bicycle.  The diligence is showing its results but they’re not quite what I would have anticipated.  The sylph-like form is not of what I speak; rather it is the sore knees and back. This persistent exercise has wrought corporeal ruin!  I have reluctantly accepted that a break is a good thing to enable one’s body to recuperate.  It should not astound me not to have known that rudimentary fact as I have seldom engaged in such sustained exercise.  We are revamping our philosophy to reduce the daily jaunts from what are routinely four-hour hikes to something closer to two hours each.

After 2 1/2 months here I am adjusting to the acknowledgement that one needn’t be as frantic as I have been about milking the occasion for everything it’s worth.  It is an anomaly for me to have so much time to myself in a place which is perpetually pleasant. Historically there has always been a time limit upon such pleasure; now it’s a matter of pacing ourselves.

In common usage, the term “inertia” may refer to an object’s “amount of resistance to change in velocity” (which is quantified by its mass), or sometimes to its momentum, depending on the context. The term “inertia” is more properly understood as shorthand for “the principle of inertia” as described by Newton in his First Law of Motion: that an object not subject to any net external force moves at a constant velocity. Thus, an object will continue moving at its current velocity until some force causes its speed or direction to change. Wikipedia

A restless night.  Awake practically every two hours. So much for going to bed early! I turn in my spongy bed with its featherbed mattress to peer at the clock.  Seven-thirty.  Not too late, still time.

Up now, no going back.  I press the buttons on the SoundLink and iPhone to sync the two, then engage Songza classics.  Shostakovich (Jazz Suite No. 2:VI. Waltz 2).  Perfect!  Who was the artist of the album cover? It is whimsical and sophisticated.

Into the bathroom. The 3:00 am Celebrex hasn’t entirely worn off but I take two Tylenol just in case. I’m an addict. Then the ritual ablutions. But first examine the healing abrasion. The zinc is working. Gargling with Listerine. Pull aside the double curtains, climb into the shower.  This house is becoming as hackneyed as my own.  The interior of the shower, familiar as the walls of a prison. Soaping and lathering, the first course, followed by aggressive application of the face cloth especially in and behind the ears. The shampoo.  Done!  Still the shaving, but almost there. The ears with Q-Tips, the drying lubricants.  Mess with the hair. Ready for fresh clothes.

Do we want to go out for breakfast?  Yes.  It’s Saturday.  We always go out for breakfast on Saturday. No need for coffee, I’ll have one there. We’re in the sunshine, in the glistening black car and moving. Going to a marina, close to the water. The place is busy.  Tomorrow is February 1st.  People are arriving on the Island in droves.  They’re tourists, we’re Islanders. The server is exceedingly bouncy.  Is she trained to act like that?  We both have the Eggs Benedict “special” (crisp pancetta, mozzarella cheese, fresh basil leaves). And grits. Afterwards I’m still craving. I require some compensating sugar. We conspire to go to Signe’s Heaven Bound Bakery & Café on Arrow Road.  My favourite is the lemon crumble but I adventurously go for the chocolate peanut butter square. I should have had the lemon crumble.  Too late now.  That indulgence will have to await another moment of calculated weakness.

The day just isn’t going as it should.  It’s not even 10:00 o’clock when we get back home.  I putter about, accomplishing nothing, going nowhere, resisting my creeping fatigue.  At last I submit and crawl back into bed, burying myself among the covers and duvet with my eye shades on.  Only to be awoken by an Amber Alert screaming from my cell phone: Jefferson, SC Alert: LIC/IUF593 (SC) Black Nissan Maxima 4 door sedan.  Who is this guy?  Is he panicking?  Has he stolen his young son from his custodial mother?  Where will he go?  Will someone identify the car?

I might as well get up, start again, to hell with the hair, who cares!  It’s 12:23 p.m.  I have to go bicycling.  The day is just too sunny.  I announce I’m going bicycling.  I dress and go.  It’s cool but sunny.  I draw the hoodie about my neck and tighten it with the collar of my worn Nautica jacket. I’m wearing shorts.

The ride through the caverns of trees is shady and nippy.  Into the sun, warm!  Through the golf club to Beach Club.  The tide is out but the wind is from the east.  I’ll go with the wind. Towards Tower Beach.

Sailing across the expanse of the beach!  Wings upon the air! Into the sun! This is what I meant!  I mustn’t go too far though, the wind’ll be cold going back.  I stop and throw myself upon the dunes, propping my head upon my plastic sandals.  The wind blows across the sand, spraying it into my face.  But the warmth of the sun takes me away as always.  Time to think dreamily again, wandering about my past, wondering how I got here.

Was that a dog? I sit up and see approaching an old, meagre yellow Labrador, looking for a pat.  I smooth her head, asking her if she’s enjoying her walk on the beach?  Her master leads her on.  I stare into the distance, the glittering water, the dazzling sun.  I can go home now and lie in the sun for the remainder of the afternoon by the pool, sheltered from the wind, until the long shadows withdraw the heat from the sun as it descends behind the towering sea pines.

No one disputes the cautionary admonition “tempus fugit” – “time flies”.  It is frequently conjoined with “carpe diem” – “seize the day”.  The message in both cases seems painfully clear – Enjoy it while you can!  However, the original Latin phrase is borrowed from the 4-book poems Georgica  written by the Roman poet Virgil around 29 BC: “sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus” – “but it flees meanwhile: irretrievable time flees”.  This expresses concern that one’s limited time is being consumed by something which may have little intrinsic substance or importance.  In the context of Virgil’s agricultural poems dealing with ploughs, the hostile world of nature, husbandry and the life and habits of bees, the focus of chief importance was the contribution of labor to the success or failure of mankind’s endeavours. Agriculture was a model for human society. Bees in particular were thought to resemble man in that they labor, are devoted to authority and dedicate their lives to the good of the community.

To the modern reader such preoccupation – though not entirely superfluous – is far less compelling.  Quite apart from the assumed and quite unfashionable subservience of mankind we cannot possibly dedicate every moment of our lives to fruitful endeavours (even if one were to presume to identify them). In any event no matter what we do, it is invariably true that the resource will amortize.  The adage is therefore not so much a warning against sloth and procrastination as a mere comment, one which nonetheless bears repeating as it captures the non-stop motion of the world and may at least instil hedonism if not altruism (“time flies when you’re having fun”).  If one were to press the aphorism for meaning it might be extended to remind us that time is eventually lost, that nothing can reverse it and there is no turning back.  As trite as the observation”Time Flies” initially appears, its appeal to our psyche lies in the fact that it freezes what cannot be frozen.  It is paradoxical that the saying stops what never ceases, as though it were a gem picked from the nebulous sky.  As undeniable as it is, none of us is aware of the passage of time except in retrospect and even then our intelligence is less about what it is than what it isn’t.  As a fact it is as edifying as watching the hands of a clock move.

Louis de la Chesnaye Audette, QC, OC was above all a man who by his own admission had his nose well in the air.  It was however a distinction to which most of us who knew him considered he was more than entitled. He was fully bilingual (French and English), a naval commander (HMCS Pictou, Amherst, Coaticook and St. Catharines), a war veteran, one of Her Majesty’s Counsel Learned-in-the-Law, a member of the Privy Council, an adjudicator (Court Martial Appeal Board, Maritime Pollution Claim Fund and the Tariff Board of Canada),  a published writer of jurisprudence, a Member of the Order of Canada, he came from a distinguished family and he had staff. He even once had the distinction of having had the Prime Minister (Lester B. Pearson) as his Landlord.  He had however one trait which was less obvious and perhaps less well-known, and that was his ability to be dismissive. He made a practiced art of it. Generally speaking he lubricated the matter with no small degree of condescension.  For example when speaking of a former secretary who took the liberty of contradicting him upon something he had done or said, he simply waved the matter aside, proclaiming it was the privilege of the masses to mock their betters!

I never had any doubt that his art was any more than a device by which to distance himself from the real problem. When he reported that his physician had informed him that he had prostate cancer he blandly commented that that was not his problem, but his physician’s problem.

It was well known that there were certain people in his life of whose company he was able to bear the deprivation. Seldom however would he engage in anything as uninspirational as name calling; rather, he would elevate the scorn to something approaching literary comment by pronouncing the object of his disdain as “preposterous”.

When confronted with something unsettling, if he were momentarily at a loss to make a reply, he lapsed into his catchall phrase, “There are moments when silence becomes you!”  Always his tactic was a combined effort to diminish the adversary and to raise himself above the throng, but without the appearance of standing on another to make himself taller.

As much as I admired him, I confess that I have never fully embraced his method of shrugging off people or events. Whether, as I suspect is the case, it is because I lack his intellectualism, or maybe even because no one could match his level of arrogance, I am unable to be so skillfully philosophic about the dilemma. I keep getting caught in the psychiatry of it all.

Lately I have contemplated at some length the difficulties I have had with different people. With each of them I have a bone to pick. Fortunately for me the analysis of the separate problems leads me to the commonality of this simple conclusion – they irk me! This in turn leads me to seek a more global resolution, rather than having to devise an individual ad hoc response. I am also bound to observe that my detailed analysis permits me to conclude that in each case there is a possibility that I may be at least partly at fault. In the result I reason that it may be wiser in the end to avoid condemnation at all rather than risk founding my conclusions on a false premise. I confess there is an element of charity in my decision. I keep thinking it may be advisable to salvage the relationship if for no other reason than that family and friends are ultimately precious. Balancing this seeming generosity (which admittedly may be little more than selfishly motivated shrewdness) is the cold reality that there are occasions when argument, reason or charity have no place, and an abrupt dismissal such as adopted by my agèd friend may be preferable.  As one friend has dryly observed, “Caring is at times pointless.”