It is fairly assured that before I undertake even something as quotidian as a late afternoon mug of chilled espresso coffee while perched at my writing desk overlooking the meandering Mississippi River I shall succeed to invest the daily enterprise with sufficient personal option to warrant an attribution beyond nondescript or mundane. There percolates from within the agricultural panorama a variety of colours, birds and plants.  Already portions of the realm are blotted by ramblng vegetation and row-upon-row of cultivated seeds. It is a long-awaited sequel to a lifetime devoted to bog-standard. I have always preferred the brushes of colour from weeds in the field or along the side of a dusty country road; and the placid river water, capturing blotches of shimmering reflection.

Once again today the predominant theme surrounds cycling.  Our first off-site visit at ten o’clock this morning was with Bill Barrie Jr of Almonte BIcycle Works. Bill had overhauled the faithful California touring model.  Meanwhile in anticipation of the collection of the reconditioned Electra “Townie” I had gingerly explored the use of my Evo “Latidude” tricyle which entailed bending my left knee enough to accommodate the pedal. I limited my adventure to repeated dalliance throughout the underground parking lot.  I didn’t however yet have the courage to explore the out-of-doors (just in case my knee began to lose interest in the project).  I believe it was a good thing to have curbed my exposure because subsequent to this my moderate exercise I am feeling the results. Training the hard plastic device now called my left knee to react with openness and animation is exhausting (and initially superlative).

As I glance upon the river I see a paddler in a small flat-bottomed boat breaking the glassy top of the surface of the water as he appears to profit from the northerly flow of the river towards the waterfalls surrounding Coleman’s Island and Metcalfe Park. I snicker!  I can regain the view of the upriver entirety in a moment of indolence. Mine is indeed a select bridge from which to regard the universe. Whether stuck here by the influence of a coffee; or fortuitously settled here with an incomparable view; there is by any standard little about which to mourn. For my part, there is none.  I am anxious to broaden the scope of my currency because I recognize this evolution of vistas is illustrative of a lifetime cycle now reduced to tricycling – about which I have no complatint whatsoever.

I confess the jump from incomparable views to tricycling is for me as well initially beyond an inductive leap and without apparent acquittal. I will however excuse the possible error by noting that these lovely vistas precisely reflect those I saw to a lesser degree almost 50 years ago when I first came to Almonte. And coincidentally lived “downriver” less than a half-mile distant from where I now sit. There is an attraction about summarzing matters late in life as poetic instances of “closing the circle” or some other rendition of uniting the beginning and the end. Frankly I think it’s probably just some unintentional blur which allows us to dignify our lives with moderate legitimacy, mystified by the philosophic confusion.