It has taken me a long time to settle my mind. Things have so often stood in the way.  But things have changed. Now that my parents are gone, now that I am at the end of my own rope (we’ve bought the headstone), now that we have discarded stuff we no longer use or need, now that I have sated my appetite for material things (and blithely preserve the ones I have), I can at last abandon the chains of duty, obligation and passion. What remains, the wreckage of years of both calculated and accidental performance and inarguable Hedonism, is a happy complacence.

And what singular devotion it is to plot the concluding path of one’s life and limbs! Through the morning mist develops unprecedented clarity and absorption.  Imagine!  A day entirely for one’s private purpose and pleasure. My greatest impediment in this blissful enterprise is the need for another bottle of Listerine or a package of Sugar Bombs® tomatoes. Naturally I have had the car washed and eaten my sliced green apple (plus several spoonfuls of MaraNatha organic creamy peanut butter). And, yes, the steel cut oats with precisely five prunes and ham and cheese slices. It’s a wonder I maintain my sylphlike figure! Everything is in its apple-pie order, admittedly a small compliment to whatever ingenuity I may possess but nonetheless for me a decidedly relieving arrangement. I’d like to say I don’t give a damn but I do.  My euphoria is an abstraction as fleeting as the dissolving mist in the morning air. This business of getting on with things, of settling one’s mind, is but an occupation of a different intention. I am not dissuaded by the narrow objectives of the cerebral and the visceral design by which I now govern my mind and body. I am but an old tree dying at the root, perhaps lingering for several more seasons, but the limbs and leaves are indisputably falling. The greater focus is upon what is now, not what may or may not follow. There persists the daily friction of existence but clearing away the dust is a faint reminder of the days of application which are now more generously performed as though even the residue were of greater gravity.

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There is a point at which one has had enough already!  Clawing on and on for more is by passable reasoning alone but a treadmill. More significantly it behooves one to take stock of matters, to calculate the loss and the gain, to summarize the past and to relish what currently obtains. The goal is not treasure but discovery; what one collects along the way is but ephemeral baggage, relics of the scintillating themes of passage.

Within the past month and a half since our arrival on Hilton Head Island we’ve coloured our otherwise bland detail with what I consider perfectly delightful and thoroughly entertaining triviality. Naturally the least alteration in one’s routine carriage constitutes fodder for unending acceleration of emotions and habits. We’ve undergone the elemental adjustment of food and lodging including sometimes animated communications with estate agents and fishmongers. My retail experience with remote suppliers has proven to be of extraordinary distraction and consequence. We’ve met captivating people. The association with suppliers has proven very satisfactory – not the least of which was our experience yesterday with Staples and UPS employees. The fabric of our domain is blended with a mixture of people and events beyond imagination! As my late mother was wont to observe, “What’s not to like!” The circle of life!