The suddenness with which the buzz has expired is alarming.  The drugs used last Wednesday at the Perth & Smith Falls Hospital during the brutal surgery on my left knee replacement have finally worn off. At the same time the post-operative miscellany with which the hospital staff adorned me upon my gleeful withdrawal from the clinic has acquired a new-found relevance. I have spent the past hour walking up and down the apartment buiding hallway, lying upon the bed while repeatedly raising my left and right leg, bending my toes on both legs forwards and backwards, compressing my buttocks for 30-second intervals then releasing, stretching my legs while sitting. My entire universe is for the moment comprised of varying degrees of leg extremities and pressures. I never imagined that pain had such a utilitarian and therefore inarguable partiality!

While I extol Nature for its insatiable desire to satisfy its bodily needs, I confess I hadn’t anticipated this particular direction. It does however succeed to exhaust the purely analgesic method of recovery beyond which I would have predicted the deductive necessity of exercise would no longer have lingered ignored. Accordingly I am pleased to admit to this newly detected resource and urgency as bitter as it may be.  Just another of life’s imponderables!

Because today is a Sunday – and the 40th wedding anniversary of my sister Linda and her husband Edward who has proven himself a formdidable poetic talent – there are numerous moments to celebrate. The traffic of paddle boarders upon the river is mounting by the day. Yesterday I passed a young woman on the street dragging behind her a two-wheeled cart upon which she had stowed her paddle board.  Given the wet nature of her appearance I assume she had been along the adjoining river and that she had profited by a convenient beach entrance. Today upon the river there were other paddle boarders accompanied by kyaks and canoes. It is a distinct contrast to the penetrating and obnoxious sound of the motorized engines of cigarette yachts peculiar to Daytona Beach and parts of the Florida Keys. It encouraged me to remark upon my bit of exercise along the hallway earlier today that I overheard a Mozart concerto emitting from an apartment.

The highlight of my Sabbath today has been a very moderate afternoon outing. Yesterday when I first familiarized myself with the inexpressible pain of my left thigh and knee following my savage surgery, I initially distracted myself from what is for me a routine habit; namely, a drive to Stittsville for a car wash. Nonetheless I persevered yesterday as I did today in the accomplishment of my idiosyncrasy. I have prettty much got the pathway down to a fine art. Like the physical therapy for my surgery, the daily car wash (epecially on a Sunday) is an expiation of guilt. And of course there are endless propositions for the advancement of guilt; but through this clever device of imagery I have succeeded to remove any deprivation of purity which might otherwise affect me.