“The weather had indeed served the Protestant cause so well that some men of more piety than judgment fully believed the ordinary laws of nature to have been suspended for the preservation of the liberty and religion of England. ”

Excerpt From
The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 2
Thomas Babington Macaulay

Lying religiously by the pool in the ten o’clock morning sun, already blistering, and listening to the piped ‘70s music from Sirius XM radio, I was drawn to “Zee Palms” in Key West 50 years ago. The memory reminded me it’s “still the same”.

I too have breached the depths of this once impenetrable surface. My gambol now is with time but the curvet is somehow less pressing, more adaptive. The urgency surely has disappeared. But the magic of a shading palm tree lingers notwithstanding the replacement of a sylphlike figure with a protuberance and silver hair. There are no longer cigarettes and booze; nor arousing lascivious interests. This is but a philosophic rendition of appetite – though I confess the Key Lime pie remains equally cogent!

it this life of ease, with nothing to do but swim and lounge, where my only preoccupation is the shifting of the white clouds against an impossibly blue sky, and what I’ll spoil myself with for dinner, things are unburdened. Certainly the grasshopper is at times a burden but I am relieved by the insinuation of an inexpressible relationship, undeniable fortuity, and these fathomless memories that are still the same.