While some things in life are apodeictic, they are not always things we’d prefer to know or acknowledge. I suppose truth by any distribution is certain to be a heady topic no matter what the conclusion or observation. It is a blunt certainty at best. This is especially so I find when the revelation or affirmation is unintended. Like discovering you’re ¾ of a century old.  It is a distinction, yes; but it turns out to be a perilous one if you haven’t kept a clear eye upon the road ahead. Predictably things change faster by the day. There are rapid alterations.

Often it has been said that the passage of life accelerates with age.  What however is less than common is the calculation that life improves incrementally.  In fact more often than not the opposite is true.  Nonetheless for some the meteoric transition is one coloured by brilliance and clarity. The effulgence of life is what characterizes its depth and substance; the lucidity is its absence of obstruction. As life is ultimately personal, I prefer to adopt the intention to dwell upon the radiance and to ignore the spanner in the works. No doubt it is a model that doesn’t work for everyone, to which my only retort is, “I’m not saving it for the fucking funeral!”

While tricycling back this morning from Fairview Manor (where again I had played the piano to an empty audience – unless you count the two elderly ladies sitting illustratively next to the exit) I passed Joe Southwell assembled (as is his long-time custom) upon his balcony in the company of Brenda  Beaubien (who had momentarily interrupted her walk to chat) overlooking Spring Street near the corner of Ottawa Street. Joe is the father of the late Billy Southwell whom I recall from the Parts Department of Bennett Motors in Carleton Place.  Joe told me this morning that Billy died of Alzheimer’s disease. My final recollection of Billy is frequently having seen him walking along Ottawa Street. He always looked well apart from the obvious distractions caused by dementia. Joe by comparison not only looked well but sounded well. The three of us enjoyed a brief repartee with the promise to reconvene. Brenda parenthetically advised that her new electric bicycle is working well and that it (but not she) had fallen.

My athletic output was again today improved by having had the tires of my tricycle properly inflated.  Quelle différence! I extended my pathway along Spring Street then around the outer boundary of our countryside habitat to home (by which time I was starting to feel the consequence of my effort). The conjunction of pain and profit is undeniable!