Every cloud must have a silver lining
Wait until the sun shines through
Smile, my honey dear, while I kiss away each tear
Or else I shall be melancholy too

My Melancholy Baby by Bing Crosby

As we inaugurate the tail end of January, those of us destined by fate or pre-existing health conditions to remain shivering in Canada are nestling in for the upcoming critical period of winter including what we all hope will be a forgiving short month of February before launching into what is commonly the wistful though unpredictable month of March.  But inspiration is in the offing – albeit 8 weeks remote. Under the circumstances – that is, unless one is a cross-country skier or other avid outdoorsman – the most favourable resort is one’s drawing room. That abstraction translates to books, podcasts and movies.

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My time-honoured friend Fiona from Toronto mentioned in an email to me on this cold winter day that she was having to go outside on an errand which she said was less troublesome for two reasons. One, she said, was the convenient proximity of the TTC which overcame the hurdle provoked by mountains of snow inhibiting car parking. The second encouragement was her new winter coat.  I have asked her to send me a photo.  In the meantime I discovered that her intelligence has sparked my own interest in the subject.

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Some people, so I understand, are prone to dreams.  At least, they verbalize that they like dreams, even apparently those that border on nightmarish, as though the attraction were pure entertainment. I on the other hand have always found dreams – on the infrequent occasion that I am aware of dreaming – to be universally unsettling, including the constancy of a colour mixture of dark green and black to add to the unfavourable character.  I have never had so-called pleasant dreams – except perhaps during my infrequent afternoon naps when, not so much as dream, I simply arrest my mind in a comfortable quarter relieved of noise and anxiety.

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It has proven to be an uncommon perk of our 30-year partnership that my co-vivant and I do don’t compete to drive a car. Though Denis has had a driver’s license issued by the Province of Ontario since the age of about 18, I have never known him to drive (though he assures me he once drove drunken friends in their Lincoln Town Car from a late night bar; and, that he drove a friend’s Mustang home). He advises the licence was for ID purposes; and, by the way, that he had taken formal driving school lessons.

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Yesterday on Netflix I stumbled upon a 2022 Spanish teen drama entitled “Merlí: Sapere Aude“. The original use of the phrase Sapere aude appears in the First Book of Letters (20 BC) by the Roman poet Horace: “Dimidium facti, qui coepit, habet; sapere aude, incipe” He who has begun is half done; dare to know; begin! The phrase is the moral to a story in which a fool waits for a stream to cease flowing before attempting to cross it.

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The nostalgic parallel to old age – as is so frequently advanced – is not, I have concluded, merely wisdom.  By immense contrast the token labels attaching to physical decomposition and arthritis are often far less flattering though – as I am equally bound to admit – no less informative.  In my defence of this discrediting analysis there is a natural but prejudicial yearning of the mind and spirit to invoke not diminution rather increase.  The craving – when applied to aging – is nonetheless not only contradictory but also unfavourable because inadvertently it constitutes an oversight of both underlying fact and influence.

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My dear Patricia,

Thank-you for your email, always welcome.

Normally – at this juncture – I would not engage in prolongation of our internet communication for fear of reducing it to a “Called you last!” jousting. By all appearance, each of us has already exchanged all that needs to be said in the circs. My reluctance is specially so in light of what I am about to say.  And I warn you now this is stuff about you I have silently harboured for years so I have had frequent opportunity upon which to ruminate, refine and reconsider its substance and truth before pronouncing my verdict. However I can no longer sustain my tranquility or withhold my secrecy.

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It’s ten o’clock in the morning. I was about to munch my breakfast eggs (skilfully cooked with avocado oil and butter then finished with Maldon salt) when the telephone rang. It was a call from the receptionist of our family dentist. She enquired whether, in view of the snow storm – and the fact that several others had already cancelled their appointments, we intended to continue with our scheduled appointment later today.  Unhesitatingly I replied that we were were.

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There is an understandable curiosity about one’s past. In spite of the obvious – namely, that we were there – the recollection is clouded by forgetfulness, time and occasionally a particle of deceit. Indeed it is not uncommon to read about – or hear someone else relate – a past incident and be surprised by the details, as though the account were not only forgotten but also not even now imaginable.  Sometimes there is a complete wonder at having experienced the account at all. On occasion we’re lucky enough to discover we behaved as formidably as we reportedly did; or, that we undertook the event at all.

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Today, at the height of my retirement and in as respectable an appearance as that to which I am now capable to attach, I presented myself to a country lawyer in our small town to sign an affidavit regarding a will I had drawn over a decade ago. It is a longstanding distinction to be a country lawyer – a distinction which, sometimes jokingly, others times mockingly, brooks either complimentary status or pejorative contempt. Predominantly however it may be displaced as a term of endearment. For my part it is an epithet to which I bond with considerable zeal and pride and no false modesty. I have heard it said of one country lawyer no longer whinnying among us that, “He practiced law with the contempt it deserves!”  This from a former Justice of the provincial court in our county seat. The labelling competition is normally among the lawyers themselves.

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