As we critically approach New Year’s Eve I was by chance reminded of the importance of the narrow view of life. While you may think that such a perspective is unfavourable for its putative avoidance of the full picture, instead for me the direction is a reminder of the significance of that which is closest at hand, specifically family and friends. I was prompted to this existential digression upon receipt this morning of charming photographs of members of a wonderful family of friends whom we met years ago on Longboat Key, Florida. They were then, and they remain so now, the model of perfection when it comes to family togetherness and noteworthiness. Indeed whatever may be said of the Americans, the one thing about which they are uncontradicted is their unqualified and oft-times remarkable devotion to family and friends. Meaningfully the lead character in our particular acquaintance is the mother of the family (who in turn is equally devoted to her own mother).
I can happily report that our immediate family enjoys the identical strength of involvement and dedication to one another. As for my side of the lineal group, only days ago on Christmas Day we dined with them – and contemporaneously spoke with my second niece in California by FaceTime – so we have thus acknowledged and reinvogarated the familial ties. As for those on my partner’s side of the equation, we profited by a similar engagement during a late summer luncheon at the golf club. And both encounters have been repeated annually for as long as I can recall.
As we head into the New Year it is no small springboard in the right direction that tomorrow on New Year’s Eve we shall celebrate yet another family congregation which shall include the added dynamic of one of our longtime friends from nearby Coleman’s Island. So animated am I by this convivial prospect that uncharacteristically I have already manufactured in my mind the celebratory costume I indeed to wear for our rendezvous; namely, something slightly more outrageous than sweat pants. And perhaps with a brooch (about which rareties I am now completely consumed). Those beautiful young girls upon the streets of New York City shant have all the fun! This aged boulevardier shall take a chance too. I conceive it to be my latest turf of exploration, an admission that domesticity has its ineffable value, an expression of the alluring simplicity of home and family life.