On a whim about ten days ago I ordered three handmade bracelets from a young woman who was our server for lunch at the golf club.  She is a student and runs a small local business. The bracelets (which recently arrived for pickup at the golf club) are an impromptu gift for my two nieces and one of their close friends. I delivered the bracelets to my sister today.

The delivery was peculiar. On the way into Ottawa I first stopped at the Petro-Canada car wash on Campeau Drive.  It is a new gas station complete with a fast food joint.  On several occasions I have encountered problems at the station. The Petro-Canada App doesn’t work; twice there was no paper in the receipt printer; the car wash card works but only capriciously; the pumps are of variable performance.  I only frequent the station because the one I prefer on Hazeldean Road is under renovation.

Though I nicely survived today’s visit at the new gas station, the remainder of the drive into the depths of the city was more of a challenge. My sister and her husband live nearby the Rideau Canal and Dow’s Lake in Ottawa South.  Much of that area is either under construction or high traffic. Mant of the normal road markings are either missing or distorted; so, not being a regular driver in the area, I found it a challenge.

Nonetheless I streamed along the broken roads and diverted to smaller passages off the main route, finally achieving my sister’s house without further difficulty. Apparently the simmering anxiety surrounding my drive there overtook me.  I became uncomfortable with everything.  So when my brother-in-law mentioned a woman (a fellow writer) whom I have known since 18 years of age (and with whom I have had an uncommonly varied and long-lasting relationship), I uncontrollably lapsed into an account of my acquaintance with the chap whom my friend dated in undergraduate studies. It was a critical account of him. The details are irrelevant. But the details are clearly of substance to me. It surprised me to dwell on the matter.

Lately I have been unsettled about our upcoming plans.  Generally.  Not just the new face of travel in the United States of America. Everything.  Which again, in the context of my current limited involvement with anything, is not saying much. There is one thing in particular on the immediate horizon – but it may require up to 3 months to resolve. Again, the detail is irrelevant.  We all have things to do.

Reflecting upon these issues has provoked me to reconsider the particulars of my present circumstances. I am afraid for the moment that I am shackled by a stalemate. Once again I am confronting my past – looking back upon its many satisfactory moments, imaging my future, cataloguing the present, levelling barriers and obstructions arising from aging and having nothing to do with my present inclination. It is Nature’s amended chart of behaviour. It is an alteration impossible to contradict. One is simply overtaken.

My present situation – not unlike the contents of the bag I delivered to my sister today – remains a mystery. I did not bother to open the bag. Nothing will change the matter. Similarly any account of the past is only retelling what happened, not what I may have preferred to happen. Catching up with the past is a trying expedition. Yet one never escapes it.