By Email
January 6, 2025
Good to hear from you, Billy. I am happy to confirm that my time in Morocco continues to satisfy my craving for warmth and new experiences. However, the term swoon does seem a little excessive!! I am now on the solo bit of my holiday in a rented apartment on the Atlantic coast. I doubt my sea views are comparable to those offered at Hilton Head but they are quite delightful and the people I have met could not have been kinder. In a word: I’m having a ball!
Good luck with the packing and a safe journey to NC (sic). Thanks for keeping an eye on my car. I wonder if the battery may need boosting after 2 months sitting but I will think about that when I return. I will miss you and Denis while you’re away. How ever will I manage?
I enjoy reading your posts so please keep them coming.
Hugs and kisses to you both,
Bunny
Without a lie the bulk of my social life is confined to encounters in the garage while tricycling or to email exchanges. The blunt truth is that, as one ages, the social boundaries diminish incrementally if indeed not more violently. Only today for example I heard from another friend (by email naturally) in which she reported on the imminent death of two of our undergraduate confrères. Now by equal punctuation, I receive another email (quoted above) from a woman (one of the few other friends we maintain apart from family) who is vacationing abroad in Morocco (and she shall thereafter return home when we are away in South Carolina). In short the already limited scope of our social conventions is further tightened by a revolving geography. Gone are the days of simply popping off to the local coffee shop for a guaranteed reunion with classmates or colleagues.
And what all of this has brought to mind is not the delicacy of the moment (or anything that transparent and maudlin). Rather it has reminded me of the love of performers for an audience (and the approbation that hopefully follows). This, I know, is an odd sequel to the importance of social contact. But as always it is the extreme example of community that illustrates the trifling point; namely, that all of us pursue what we do with a wish for achievement and acknowledgment. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. And as chance would have it, being as I am the recipient of the kind words of support from Bunny (noted above), I am encouraged commensurately to confess openly my poisonous appetite for corroboration.
It won’t surprise you to learn that several days ago while watching a YouTube video about a movie star or singer (I honestly cannot remember who) it was stated outright by the performer that he (though I think it was a she) recognized that his/her pursuit of success came along with the wish for approval. At first inclination, one may be disposed to Pshaw! others for such overt need for approbation (or is it exoneration). Whatever the objective it is a superfluity most often associated with the rich and famous, as though their demonstrability derives from their popular appeal; and the striking keenness they have for that appeal.
I have come to conclude the devotion is a tolerable trait of the performer (howsoever modest he or she may be). I include in the bailiwick of performers painters, architects, dancers, singers, actors, writers, entertainers and basically circus staff of any order. All other professionals (for example doctors, lawyers, accountants) who have less a public expression, I exclude from this blanket of forgiveness because they have normally adopted other means of gratifying themselves. But for the performer, endorsement is imperative. Success cannot survive without it.