Since checking out of the hotel this morning shortly before sunrise, our 5-hour journey from West Virginia to our destination in Binghamton, New York (interrupted by a nutritious breakfast on the way) has been up one hill and down another. Binghamton lies on the Allegheny Plateau hence its hilly terrain.

This particular tiny journey, like so many ventures of daily life, though seemingly mundane at first blush, was coloured by extraordinary features.  As we drove through this hilly atmosphere, ears regularly popping, we exchanged those modest reflections peculiar to such as we who have been together approaching three decades, who have in all likelihood spoken the same or similar words one thousand times before. And yet this prolonged communion was punctuated today with what we each perceived to be heartfelt observations concerning the fitful and eventful evolution of the relationship and the personal advantages of us both.

Evolution is perhaps an odd word to describe the growth of any partnership but I feel it captures what are the native economies and elements of the parties involved. Time and age add to the fraternity and affection the distillation of the fundamental characteristics of those involved. Not all of it is, as one might imagine, the purity of the threads which insinuate the whole. Rather part of the equation is merely the acuity to address the very decomposition of the whole.  Life, while not always an uphill battle, is nonetheless at times a downhill slide.  The scrupulousness of the transition is its adaptation, conjoining what one hopes to achieve.  It is the quiet mulling of these details – often a repeated effort – which can finally succeed to expand the conversant possibilities.

Unwittingly today we reached that zenith of ambition which often obscures itself in the clouds. Granted much of the development is the product of the related clarity of our daily enterprises.  Based upon our incremental aging as well as the recognizable modification of the United States of America (where we have wintered on average for 6 months each year for the past decade), we’ve been obliged to inquire into the amendment of our lifestyle.  And today we found and determined the avenues upon which we might usefully trespass. Certainly hope is a critical ingredient of these fantastic ideals. But it satisfies that adage about getting down a river; viz., knowing either where or where not to go.