It isn’t every day that one feels an overwhelming sense of accomplishment and fulfilment. When one does, it is the Sacrament of Heaven! Friday affords a convenient occasion upon which to be cock-a-hoop, representing as it does a traditional day for unblemished merrymaking and the start of what may become a weekend of flawless frivolity. This is especially so today as temperatures have for the first time in weeks risen to the astronomic level of precisely 1° above freezing! What greater imperative can there be for a burgeoning springtime!
There are many indicia of gratification in this marvel we call life. Among them are employment pride, family achievement, retail purchase, amorous conjugation, a new pet, awakening plans for the future and a general sense of bien-être. It is perhaps the latter denotation that captures a summary of all that contributes to the heightened degree of complacency whatever it may be. Sometimes it is no more than an uninhibited expression, a blameless devotion to happiness.
There was a time when I mechanically punctuated the very desirable weekend idleness with a gin or vodka martini. The preceding formula was a frozen glass with frozen additives. They’re all missing today with the exception of the stuffed olives. Gone too is Jane Austen (all six paragraphs which I inevitably repeated between sips), the transforming glare of the Vermont Casting and my little French bulldog Monroe. No matter. One mustn’t linger in the past; be thankful for what we had and for what is to come.
An invariable resort is soothing jazz music. And naturally the prospect of a terrific meal, heralded by appetizing smells from the kitchen. The propulsion of another tonic is the return today of a carriage clock belonging to my late mother. Peter Schäfer undertook the necessary attention required to revitalize both it and the grandfather clock. His is a disappearing talent and one which will indisputably be missed when he no longer wishes to pursue the art.
When I lived on Spring Garden Road in Halifax, Nova Scotia while attending law school I recall spending quiet evenings at my drawing room desk overlooking the street, writing similar drivel about the then current state of affairs. In my mind and heart nothing much has changed since those days over fifty years ago. Ask almost anyone and they’ll echo the identical though peculiar sentiment that we’re all still the same as ever we were. It is naturally a small compliment in some respects; but perhaps its renaissance is no more unnatural than the seed and the tree metaphor.
The first two months of 2021 have transpired with the common inexplicable speed of life. The mounting hopes for vaccination continue to encourage. People are collectively reawakening to the former animation of living. It is altogether a grand development worth celebrating. Cheers!