We’ve been back in Canada from the United States for four days. Apart from the declining stock market, the sense of harmony is incalculable. The relief is not merely being home. Our minor occupations throughout our short return have included cutting ties with the United States. For the present we have no ambition or plans to return. Today we closed our Sunpass account (Florida’s Turnpike electronic toll collection). We also wrote to our US bank account manager to transfer funds back to our Canadian bank.

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Getting things ready for future growth involves preliminary groundwork. Reliably matters have already hardened with the expiation of time and the descent to habit. For some reason there is a perceived state of happiness when things are undisturbed. Nonetheless it is a competing character of human nature to adopt differences. These in turn precipitate messing with the surface, planting new seeds, tilling the soil, arranging for the prospect of change. It is an expedition requiring effort.  It keeps the blood moving and sometimes tingles the surface.

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Some things don’t require much choice.  The passenger automobile for example.  In spite of the variety of motor vehicles on the market, I have long ago narrowed the options to domestic vehicles (because historically those dealerships are the only ones in the rural area where I live). Accessibility is the key. The collateral benefit is that frequently the country people are easier to get to know, often living in the same small town or very nearby.  Convenience though is the paramount selling feature (especially if one is working for a living or raising a family and having limited spare time); though even for us old unemployed vagrants the facility to get to and from a dealership for repairs or routine maintenance is nothing to pooh-pooh. Besides we haven’t all the luxury or inclination to deal at arm’s length with the Rolls Royce dealership in Montréal!

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It would be inconceivable to have predicted this ideal day, our return home to Canada from the United States of America after a two-month absence, to life in the rural town of Mississippi Mills along the river, on a cool but clear and spectacularly sunny day, on the 1st day of April, 2025. Overnight – recalling anxiously the consternation I had encountered last year when leaving Binghamton –  I had stewed beneath my duvet covers about exiting the roundabout.  Like all midnight dreams and recurring thoughts, it amounted to nothing specific other than worry and upset.  This morning at 5:40 am when I awoke from the ferment, the turbulence lingered. But when, after a restorative breakfast of hot porridge and a sliced firm banana, and when we finally approached the roundabout heading to Canada, I listened tentatively to the GPS instructions and, contrary to our objective, headed south on Interstate 81 as directed, only to be subsequently notified to take an entirely unexpected turn onto a seemingly unrelated route which in turn led promptly to Interstate 81 north.

The next  leg of the journey through Syracuse was of similar historical bother and concern. The route there was again undergoing tremendous reconstruction and related twists and indirect passages.  But we survived without obstruction.  Within what seemed little time we were out of the threat of complications; the road opened wide, relatively untraveled. leading directly northward. It was then too that the windy, foggy atmosphere of tiny ice particles began to clear. I muttered to myself as we drove that the little Cadillac was performing to scratch.  It bothers me to know I shall soon be abandoning this superlative machine for an all-electric model.  But hanging onto the past is never the best solution. It is frankly my experience that we are better to embrace change and advance as is normally the most advantageous.

But even before we arrived home and got a look at the new electrical installation to accommodate a 240v outlet for charging the EV, we proposed to stop in Bells Corners for Vietnamese soup from Mr. Pho. There was nobody else in the place when we arrived.  Mr. Pho happily recognized us and rightly enquired whether we had been away.  We told him we had just crossed the border an hour ago.  Upon asking about his nephew (who once worked in the restaurant as a server), Mr. Pho informed us the nephew has lately married a girl from Vietnam.  The nephew now works in the high tech arena in California. This animated discussion led to an historical account by Mr. Pho about Vietnam, formerly divided into three parts, North, South and Middle.  Mr. Pho, who is from the Middle zone, now aligns with the South because the communists have overtaken the North.  The reduced divisions are now only north and south; and, not unlike contrary political squabbles elsewhere, families are regularly divided between north and south alliances. The ambling conversation crystallized upon the arrival of further patrons.  When our aromatic tea, shrimp salad rolls and hot-and-sour soup arrived we were in heaven.

From there we drove next door to Petro-Canada, initiating our Canadian credit card once again and applying Petro-Points for the purchase of windshield wiper fluid. Then of course the statutory car wash.

Back in Almonte, we drove to the local postal outlet to collect mail which had been too large to insert into our mail box. Once back in the apartment we discovered a huge collection of weekly publications from Country Life in England. But before addressing the uncollected mail we sat at table, each with a fresh mug of coffee, and a box of donuts we had just collected from Tim Horton’s.

What followed was a strategic review of all outstanding tax documents from Canada Revenue Agency and our financial advisor. Once we downloaded these tax forms to our computers we then uploaded them to our accountant.

Throughout these important matters we connected with local friends, promising to contact them for coffee and a chat as soon as possible. We of course managed to unpack our suitcases, restore things to drawers, replug computing devices, set aside clothes for laundry and open the blinds throughout the apartment. Though we arrived home at a relatively early hour (2:00 pm), it is now approaching midnight. The weather tomorrow threatens to be cloudy and possibly snowing.  However the forecast is for springtime weather in the near future.  We’re tickled to be back home, organized in our digs, having nothing but the pleasing society of friends to contemplate.

Since checking out of the hotel this morning shortly before sunrise, our 5-hour journey from West Virginia to our destination in Binghamton, New York (interrupted by a nutritious breakfast on the way) has been up one hill and down another. Binghamton lies on the Allegheny Plateau hence its hilly terrain.

This particular tiny journey, like so many ventures of daily life, though seemingly mundane at first blush, was coloured by extraordinary features.  As we drove through this hilly atmosphere, ears regularly popping, we exchanged those modest reflections peculiar to such as we who have been together approaching three decades, who have in all likelihood spoken the same or similar words one thousand times before. And yet this prolonged communion was punctuated today with what we each perceived to be heartfelt observations concerning the fitful and eventful evolution of the relationship and the personal advantages of us both.

Evolution is perhaps an odd word to describe the growth of any partnership but I feel it captures what are the native economies and elements of the parties involved. Time and age add to the fraternity and affection the distillation of the fundamental characteristics of those involved. Not all of it is, as one might imagine, the purity of the threads which insinuate the whole. Rather part of the equation is merely the acuity to address the very decomposition of the whole.  Life, while not always an uphill battle, is nonetheless at times a downhill slide.  The scrupulousness of the transition is its adaptation, conjoining what one hopes to achieve.  It is the quiet mulling of these details – often a repeated effort – which can finally succeed to expand the conversant possibilities.

Unwittingly today we reached that zenith of ambition which often obscures itself in the clouds. Granted much of the development is the product of the related clarity of our daily enterprises.  Based upon our incremental aging as well as the recognizable modification of the United States of America (where we have wintered on average for 6 months each year for the past decade), we’ve been obliged to inquire into the amendment of our lifestyle.  And today we found and determined the avenues upon which we might usefully trespass. Certainly hope is a critical ingredient of these fantastic ideals. But it satisfies that adage about getting down a river; viz., knowing either where or where not to go.

We departed South Carolina promptly at 7:00 am this morning on the heels of an even earlier breakfast at the hotel.  For me the repast was oatmeal and an English muffin slathered in butter and Jiffy peanut butter. My partner opted for more traditional fare of scrambled eggs, sausage patties and an English muffin.

The highway connection from the hotel to Interstate 95 was exceedingly convenient. We were en route and in full gear within moments of leaving the hotel parking lot. Everything about our stay in Lumberton, SC had been ideal. The positivity was reflected in the drive that followed.

Passing northward through North Carolina and Virginia (pointing directly through Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York to Ottawa), it is soon evident that one traverses a stunning mountain range and picturesque valley. It is the Blue Ridge Mountains in the Shenandoah Valley. In springtime the vistas are delightful, a warming pulse in an erstwhile chilly season. Perhaps because today was a Sunday we seemed to escape the usual congestion of vehicular and commercial traffic through the Shenandoah Valley.

Getting here to Harrisonburg, Virginia from Interstate 95 across Interstate 64 to Interstate 81 one encounters names such as Myrtle Beach, Fayetteville, Raleigh, Roanoke, Lynchburg and Richmond. The atmosphere is fraught with colonial history. We favourably recalled our stay years ago at the Jefferson Hotel and our afternoon amble about the neighbourhood on a magnificent autumn day.

Because we arrived at the hotel desk so early in the afternoon today, we were obliged to linger in the lobby lounge for a  while before our suite was ready. A group of elderly women was congregated nearby, snacking and drinking. We never did determine what they were about.

This evening is dinner at the Ridge Room, the hotel’s rooftop bar and lounge.  It’s a spot we’ve regularly frequented. Another day of focus has been accomplished. Our pathway to home gradually decreases.

The Blue Ridge Mountains are part of the Appalachian Mountain range. The Shenandoah Valley is a geographic valley and cultural region of western Virginia and the eastern panhandle of West Virginia in the United States. The Valley is bounded to the east by the Blue Ridge Mountains.

At about 8:30 am this morning as planned we left Hilton Head Island for the last time. Packed and ready to go.  We had even organized far enough in advance to allow for a ritual breakfast of steel cut oats and fruit before departure. But then it was into the pollen-covered Cadillac and headed north, consumed by an unusual spirit and moderate trepidation concerning both what we were leaving behind and where we were going.  We were to a degree in limbo; there were matters yet unresolved, pending and in suspension.

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The morning, though extended by a relatively early beginning, has already slipped away. I preoccupied myself with breakfast, answering and dealing with emails, and instructing ChatGPT concerning the composition of a familial tale and the creation of related images. As we approach our late afternoon dining experience at nearby Salty Dog Café we amuse ourselves by completing whatever possible to engineer a prompt departure tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.  We have for example done all the packing possible.

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Shortly after noon, having seated myself on a deck chair overlooking Braddock Cove,  it was a flawless drift into a spellbound state of languor. Nothing but a blue sky and the occasional squawk of a Great egret or a Laughing gull. The breeze from the south immersed me in a blissful lapse of vanished thought. By design I propelled the expansion of my wandering diversion, confusing the immediacy of the moment with the rapture of the balmy air. At last I faded entirely, carried away into a dreamy sleep, unperturbed, inviolate and remote.

The studied capitulation to this backyard amusement is without parallel here on Hilton Head Island where historically my dedication has been unrelentingly to the beach and the sea. But a combination of factors – primarily having returned my tricycle yesterday to the proprietor – plus the irreversible collapse of my erstwhile physical mobility, have contributed to this new scheme of retreat on the island. While I won’t say that today marked the first instance of having cultivated this particular merriment; somehow its gusto and relevancy were heightened today.  Perhaps it is the acceptance of its novelty; or, the uninhibited communication with the distant oyster beds or the sight of a random launch upon the water. Retreating to this private arena has isolated me from the sea though it is only as close as across the park and along the boardwalk to the shore.  Nonetheless the paramountcy of my physical decline has succeeded to defeat even those proximate ambitions.

Conflicting with this seeming disparity is the belief that paradoxically part of my physical complaint is the consequence of having overexerted my limbs by repeated application on the tricycle (and – I accept – without the benefit of stretching). As you might guess, I am seeking to palliate the abuse by uncompromising resilience in a state of idleness. It is for the moment as close as I shall get to massage; that is, allowing the tightened muscles of my thighs and lower legs to expand and recover some of their former ambivalence. Already for example I sense that the former constraint of my cycling exertion has diminished. Though I acknowledge the imperative and utility of exercise, I think too there is a time when relaxation is in order. I have accordingly chosen to do so in the remaining several days here.

Normally getting me to retire to the subdued atmosphere of a backyard deck would have been unheard of. It is not frankly a posture I have regularly assumed in the past on Hilton Head Island or elsewhere. But admittedly it is an incremental alliance, one in fact which I have already begun at home by sitting on the balcony looking upriver in the late afternoon when the sunshine glistens across the placid waterway. It is an abbreviation and consolidation of old age. I compliment myself for having recognized the dominion of nature as it inescapably broadens its measure upon my confined state of being. Confessing the preoccupation with decomposition by any retail is hardly something to proclaim; but nonetheless it is not fiction and as such it is all the more worthy of at least some attention and attempted adaptation.

Therein lies the genesis of my own enchantment; the North American passenger automobile. As chance would have it, the vehicle figures by no small account among my ancestors on both sides of the familial fence.  For example one of the earliest recollections I have of my late mother’s brother Larry (my favourite uncle) was his red convertible Bonneville Pontiac, a monstrous car by today’s standards.  On my father’s side, his father drove a V12 Cadillac sedan. My own father perpetuated the inherited animation by driving his 8-cylinder Buick Riviera to and from New Brunswick to enjoy his 200-acre parcel of land there. I recall too my father having told me that, prior to marriage, he owned a Studebaker convertible automobile with power windows. He latterly continued (while resident in Stockholm) to fuel his appetite for sedans by dealing directly with the Ford Motor Company to arrange the overseas transport of a number of cars including a Ford XL convertible which I remember having collected with my father in Rotterdam during one of my summer visits from boarding school. I recall too that when driving the car throughout Europe I regularly heard disparaging remarks from other drivers, “Votre camion!“; but on the French and Italian riviera it was an entire success.

For now I have chosen to punctuate my own mechanical divertissement with a fully-electric automobile (Cadillac Optiq). The allusion (yes, that’s the intended spelling) is promoted by inevitability on all sides. I am certainly not the first in our apartment building to have a fully electric automobile but for me it constitutes a noticeable switch.  The car I have selected is being manufactured for the first time in North America this year; so, we’ve decided to wait until August to order a 2026 model. Already I am calculating the expanse of my travel in the new vehicle, partly as occasion to test the boundary of the battery when fully charged (which I believe is about 300 miles). Naturally the customary Petro-Canada wash card will prevail unobstructed by this internal modification.