This evening we abandoned our custom of sitting on the balcony after dinner to chat and idly gaze upriver. This afternoon’s weather turbulence wrought by the precipitous shift to cooler temperatures upon the retreat of the heat wave had left the patio chairs and floor beneath damp and uninviting. Instead we turned off the A/C and opened the balcony door while positioning ourselves in the small adjacent drawing room overlooking the distant fields and river. It was a moderate accommodation having the advantage of no bugs (which we only ever discover when too late).

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Every public school classroom in Louisiana has been ordered to display a poster of the Ten Commandments – a move that civil liberties groups say they will challenge.

The Republican-backed measure is the first of its kind in the US, and governs all classrooms up to university level. Governor Jeff Landry signed it off on Wednesday.

Christians see the Ten Commandments as key rules from God on how to live.

The new law describes them as “foundational” to state and national governance. But opponents say the law breaks America’s separation of church and state.

The first amendment to the US Constitution – known as the Establishment Clause – says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

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An atmospheric view of our rambling passage today configures a square from Mississippi Mills, Hopetown, Calabogie, Arnprior then home again. Between them were hamlets Middleville, Brightside, Burnstown and Stewartville. But first we paused for breakfast early this morning at the golf club in the Village of Appleton along the Mississippi River.  Normally we would have preferred to sit outside on the patio but by 9:30 am the temperature had already reached close to 30°C so we were more comfortable seated inside, perched upon the high chairs at an elevated table overlooking the first tee.

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Two dishevelled young men – probably in their early twenties – corralled on a sidewalk bench next to the Metro grocery store with their meagre belongings and water bottles on the ground next to them. And an upturned hat for donations. One of the fellows sang and played his guitar. He sang songs I didn’t recognize as though the compositions were original. Clipped to a music rack were several pages of paper about 8½” x 11” that fluttered in the breeze and which he occasionally adjusted. The lyrics were predominantly dreary and remorseful, reminding me of Bob Dylan, whinny and wistful words. The  bearded singer stopped to smoke a cigarette or something which he appeared to have rolled himself. His melodic words included, “use my arms to fly higher” and repetitive verses proclaiming “his space and his place”. His teeth were remarkably white and photogenic. His companion appeared agreeably agitated by the music and jumped about, swinging his arms to the music, proffering personal exchanges which were often humorous to the two. He as well had a beard plus a huge mass of curly reddish hair on his head. They both wore long pants on this exceedingly hot day but the singer had partially rolled up the bottoms of his trousers.  When singing he crossed his legs and looked quite relaxed seated in the shade of the overhanging roof of the grocery store.

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Looking back on things can sometimes reveal hidden treasures. Not that everything that ever happened is recorded.  But stories of endeavour and accomplishment are always scintillating. No doubt one day someone will ask, “How did they manage to do it?”  We take so much of our present for granted as though it were customary, expected and unusual. But it never is. There’s a lot going on in the present that is just as intriguing; that is, if we can bring ourselves to slow down long enough to take a look at it.

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Many, many years ago I met a gentleman in the financial district of downtown Toronto. He told me he practiced maritime law. I believe he worked as in-house counsel for an insurance company. I don’t recall the particular circumstances of the impromptu acquaintance (though it may have been in a bar at the King Edward Hotel) but I do recall being impressed by his uncommon undertaking. The practice of maritime law was to me a rarefied and puzzling avocation. In keeping with my general interest in matters nautical – and residing as I have from time to time adjacent the emerald waters of the Gulf of Mexico or the churning waters of the North Atlantic Ocean – the relevance of maritime law has on occasion surfaced. My particular inquisitiveness revolves around shipwreck, a sphere not unpopular for example in Key West which has an unfortunate history of such occurrences due to its proximity to coral reefs lying only meters below the sparkling surface. While I don’t intend to engage in an examination of the applicable maritime law regarding shipwreck (and the entitlement to its trove), I felt a modest familiarity with the topic might prove informative if not merely an enlargement of the customary vocabulary. What by the way had prompted the original enquiry was a comment one evening from a woman that she had noticed some flotsam and jetsam in the tide. Her observation arose in connection with the recurrence of what is called “Red Tide“.

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Once having succumbed to any indulgence (and I regret to say my past is sotted with more than a few) it was not uncommon for me to proclaim perhaps apologetically but always energetically, “Well, I got my money’s worth!” I flatter myself to recognize quality. My sense however is that not everyone is as cavalier about expenditure. My vulgar activity was unquestionably driven by appetite not insouciance. Whether the object of my devotion was things or people, I was shamelessly propelled by immediacy (oddly without a hint of regard for impending doom or theoretical loss). No, there was no philosophic restraint or extraneous fuel; rather the operation was strictly visceral.  This may seem a small compliment but it echoes another popular yet singularly insightful adage, “The best sauce for any meal is an appetite!”  The conviction is driven not by rapacity or lasciviousness; it is just plain ardour, an answer to a call, as indefinable as pain.  And like pain the ephemeral appetite evaporates when the matter is addressed. An appetite is a time-sensitive project both in and out I’d say.

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The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed precisely seven times. I had been awake for hours though probably only since I had heard six chimes then relapsed into my disjointed overnight echoes and reflections, seeking to summarize the present, to eclipse the past, to manage and contain the wealth of memories, information and detail, to put it all in apple pie order.  From beneath a corner of my sleep mask I could see sunlight greedily bordering the window blinds, impressing its metallic white colour with uncompromising sharpness. The impression of the day was by any account brighter than normal.

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As I gazed out the balcony window from my desk early this morning a tiny bird propelled itself not far from where I sat directly outward across the open field, swooping and sailing up then plunging down to a large wavering tree on the far edge of the tilled soil where it disappeared into the mass of towering greenery. It was a cloudy day, the rising sun disrupted by a mixture of grey and white bundles, fluffy streaks and hints of clear blue patterns among the beshevelled curtains. A cock crew, birds chirped and sang. The sun, unblotted, suddenly glistened hot then vanished cool again.

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Whether it’s Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet or Salvador Dali, I’m sorry, but, “You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all!”  Same applies to Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludvig van Beethoven or Ludovico Einaudi. Their style, their singular character, their resonance, the product of each of them is invariably the same. And without overstating the obvious (that is, that they’re all fabulous in their own right), I too am the same as they in that whatever I am, whatever it is that distinguishes me, however moderately I may express myself – and more specifically – whatever it is about which I express myself in my highly qualified manner – is (in my case certainly) sadly repetitious.  I need for example only repeat (as I have so often done before) that I am placated in this unshackled admission of limitation by the majesty of the view from my desk as I type these words upon the face of my MacBook Pro and glance ever so casually (and ever so thankfully and ever so gleefully) upon the wind-blown face of the sapphire river and the underside of the windswept jade-coloured leaves of the silent bountiful trees in the distance across the burgeoning farmers’ fields. This is my Paradise!

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