Whew! I am just now rewinding and realigning my personal mechanism following what for the past several hours has been a singularly frenetic business. I am ashamed to say the tumult involves nothing either serious or especially unusual. It is probably only a reflection of my wackadoo nature. But the confusion succeeded to tip my equilibrium. It started about eight o’clock this evening; and it is now pushing eleven o’clock. During that period we have metaphorically bumped into one another and jumped over one another and untold obstacles as we sought to organize and quell what unexpectedly arose late in the day. The disturbances (there were basically two) arose from, one, Johnnie’s anticipated memorial celebration; and, two, the current affairs of my partner’s nephew.
After what had been a predominantly calm and inactive day for me, things suddenly took off into the clouds upon my partner’s return from a hockey match which he and his nephew had attended in the city and after which they had dined together at a local restaurant. It is an exaggeration to speak of the trifling events which ensued as feverish but so misaligned were we in confronting the issues that by unintended error we managed to throw into disarray our objectives. Nor did it help that confusion abounded in the technical features common to both purposes.
We have unwittingly learned that dealing with hotels on the one hand; and, attempting on the other hand to assistant a younger clan member are dedications sometimes uncertain and complicated. Hotels can change ownership and it is never assured that the new and the old coincide as they should. Similarly involvement in anything with one’s relatives can be equally thorny. In the end however we managed to settle upon a convenient arrangement at the Château Laurier Hotel for the upcoming congregation in memory of our late friend Johnnie; and, subsequently to communicate an unrelated matter of interest to a close friend of ours regarding my partner’s nephew which we hope will prove to be to their mutual advantage.
Resetting the clock is never without a full rewind of the apparatus. The same applies to re-establishment of calm in one’s personal life. It is so very easy to become distracted from the maintenance of one’s balance on the high wire that is life. Naturally a feature of reasonable novelty and unanticipation is never without its opportunity for invigoration and learning; but I find as I get older my tackle adjusts less willingly to delirium whether rapturous or incoherent. This is especially so on the heels of having just had my car tuned yesterday, the oil changed and the tyres rotated and newly pressurized. Shamefully perhaps I am once again reminded of that line from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad regarding recapture in one’s life of “apple-pie order”.
Lord Jim is a novel by Joseph Conrad originally published as a serial in Blackwood’s Magazine from October 1899 to November 1900. An early and primary event in the story is the abandonment of a passenger ship in distress by its crew, including a young British seaman named Jim. He is publicly censured for this action and the novel follows his later attempts at coming to terms with himself and his past and seeking redemption and acceptance.
The non-linear narrative follows Jim as he learns about the consequences of a single poor decision, the indifference of the universe, and the inability absolutely and comprehensively to know oneself.
As so often happens in these circumstances there occurs a further unconnected incident which completely contradicts the current sulphuric mood and repositions everything to a less abrasive and more settled bearing. Such was the case this evening upon receipt of a communication from one of our dear friends in New Zealand who gleefully reported while lunching in their garden upon the appearance of a bird, “an intruder (which) showed up to feast on our canna plants; Beautiful Tui (their dog) only a few meters away“. Serendipitously the gentleman to whom we related the matter concerning my partner’s nephew is perhaps at this very moment flying in the South Pacific Ocean over New Zealand en route to Australia.
Meanwhile we too are nearing our own diversion upon nature’s broader domaine as we prepare to travel to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Coincidentally a number of factors are percolating, or have recently evolved, which complete our initial preparations for departure. It is no accident that the threads of this quilt are uniting at this time to finish the picture. I would have felt it both undesirable and ungracious to pretend not to be moved by the anticipation. It is yet another corollary of aging that stimulants are few and far between; and, that identification and magnification of such events are not without their place. From my state of enhanced immobility, getting closer to the object of design is not in the least objectionable.