No matter where one happens to be, if it’s raining it’s dull outside. Such is the grey picture today, a rainy Sunday on Key Largo. The earth on Key Largo must be but a rind upon the coral reef beneath. Everywhere is evidence of the stony impenetrable coral. Miraculously the vegetation survives and thrives though there are signs of distress reflected in the twisted and hardened limbs of the rude trees. No doubt the abundance of vegetation is due in part to the frequency of rain throughout the summer months. Thereafter from about November until May the weather is predictably dryer. Except that is upon these relatively infrequent and fleeting occasions of rain.

A rainy day anywhere is likewise an occasion to ponder the imponderables that percolate from within, the distant memories one can barely recall, perhaps nurtured by the halting metaphor of rain. The rain and fugitive condensation upon intervening glass (whether in the car or while sitting at home and staring abroad) force one to retreat into private thoughts. The stimulation of sunshine and blue skies is absent; instead one is subdued and reflective, an evaporating ether. The gloomy atmosphere defines one’s sometimes mournful thoughts. How peculiar it is to feel overwhelmed by shadowy dismay. And on the heels of this ponderous echo I received news of the recent death of an ancient school chum. It is a reminder that the years draw nigh.

We hastened our awakening this morning so that we might profit by an early visit to the local grocery store before others overtook the aisles. Our subsequent attempt to frequent a local beanery for breakfast was less successful because the Sunday morning crowd had already insinuated the place. So we turned back and satisfied ourselves with the contents of our own larder. The defeat nonetheless afforded me a window to reclaim my exercise agenda which for one mingy reason or another has lately been interrupted. I tooled about for 45 minutes, covering 5.88 Km, sufficient to expiate my guilt. Afterwards I landed at the Island pool where I subsequently chatted with Cigar Guy who reports that his belle Rosalia from Sicily departed this morning for New York City. CG is off to join family in Texas for Christmas which astonishingly is precisely one week hence.

It is now only 6:10 pm and already the sky is black. The Winter Solstice is almost here. The season is soon upon us!