Although it takes me longer every morning to engage my mind and anatomy (I’ve intentionally taken to doing so with moderate acceleration to overcome the lack of intellectual and physical exuberance), I nonetheless hold fast to my lifetime ambition of having a fresh start. It reflects the product of a night’s rest and the sense of reinvigoration prompted by any new day really but for whatever reason I always feel the necessity to start afresh. It is a native invitation to paint a new image on the canvass of life. One must dress accordingly. Which means wearing clean clothes and cleansing one’s spectacles, to see and to be seen.

We’ve transitioned from springtime to summertime. The base of the world is everywhere changed from dull grown and grey to green, much of which is soft, bright green peculiar to new growth (largely whatever is growing in the fields). The trees by comparison have the richer green of their already matured leaves. Broadly speaking the landscape is verdant and lush. We have as well the enviable distinction of seeing the varying shades of blue water in the river, sometimes smooth, sometimes ruffled, a plateau composing a wandering channel between the tall trees on the shoreline.

We intend to divert ourselves from the apartment approaching eleven o’clock this morning to permit our housekeeper do her thing. Our project today is somewhere in the hinterland of Lanark County, somewhere we’ve been to before (though not frequently), reportedly having a cheese factory of note. Naturally I embrace these trifling outings because I do nothing else of consequence.  Having removed myself from the public domain of literature, I feel an odd sense of loss and departure, even further insolation. I didn’t announce the switch to anyone; though I suspect no one cares.  Nor should they.  But it amounts to a sense of loss. Yet nothing will persuade me to reverse the medium as I have now done twice already. I’m done with that, whatever it was. Instead it is back to relishing the construction and wood of the drawers of my mahogany desk.  The drawers are full of calculated useful items, including my collection of pens which I no longer use and one of which is I fear irretrievably broken (I cannot image Henry Birks & Sons would have the replacement part nor can I bring myself to heave it especially as the green ink cartridges were from Paris, France). It is emblematic of the state of my personal decline in the world. So much for getting to the top of the world!