Preparing for Christmas

It is now our well-worn wisecrack when asked what we’re doing for Christmas to answer “Pack!” For the past seventeen years since we met, we have retreated from festive family gatherings and opted instead for a trip south primarily to capitalize upon the evaporation of business opportunity during the period.  As evident as it is that Christmas week is not the ideal time for business, it was many years before I could implement the habit of closing the office door at that time for the simple reason that the over-riding emotionalism of Christmas obliged me to stay within reach of family.  Once however the cord was cut I learned to expand the holiday period to begin on any Friday immediately before Christmas (either because office parties inevitably consume that day or charitable employers give it to their employees).  Later I acknowledged that the first week of January is easily avoided as an exhausted population recovers from the expense and indulgence of the season.

Small Town Law Practice

Quite unexpectedly (being as I am a virtual recluse in a town which is but a satellite of the metropolis) I have been asked to meet with a third year law student who apparently has ambitions to practice law in a rural environment and seeks my take on it. He heard of me through one of his law professors who is a family friend. I understand the scholar is from a smaller urban centre and supposedly has hopes of returning to it upon being called to the Bar. Until now I hadn’t imagined that a small town law practice would hold any interest for an aspiring lawyer, not because I denigrate it but more because I felt it to be uncool or archaic (even if moderately quaint).

The Trustee

Although it smacks of the esoteric, the term “trustee” may nonetheless arise not infrequently in daily communication. For example, there is the “estate trustee” (what some may equate with the now historical expression “executor and trustee”), trustee-in-bankruptcy, board of trustees, trust company and a mere trustee. In its broadest sense, a trustee can refer to anyone who holds property, authority or a position of trust or responsibility for the benefit of another (which may in the case of boards of trustees include the public benefit or other charitable purpose). In all cases the trustee may be a natural person or a corporation, whether or not they are a prospective beneficiary.

Under Siege

Since the brutal market melt-down in 2008, when years of accumulated savings of many people simply evaporated over-night, there has been a pervasive and unsettling sense of being under siege. Like any successful military operation, the attack came unexpectedly and lethally, causing a feeling of instant isolation and surrender. The spin-offs of the initial calamity include imperceptible recovery, continued unemployment, forced re-thinking of the worth of a university education, the growing need to abandon hopes of early retirement (or worse, the need to return to work), a stepped-up acceptance of the diminution of the value of money, an acknowledgement of the pragmatism of raising the age of right to Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security, the paradox of low interest rates and commensurate laughable return on investment and a general loss of any candidacy for entitlement.

All Hallows’ Eve

Halloween like so many other commingled pagan and Christian traditions has its roots as a feast which marked both the end of summer and the walking abroad of departed souls who were here for the last time before the transition to the next world. Even spirits must need be fed so the custom of collecting “treats” (or what once were called “soul cakes”) unfolded for the benefit of both us and the supernatural beings. In case the meandering ghosts were prone to exercise their displeasure with us mortals as a final act of vengeance it was considered prudent to disguise oneself on that particular evening. The harvest of pumpkins (frequently carved for the effect of spookiness) combined both the feast and rite of passage. Remember too that bringing the cattle down from the summer highlands necessitated the annual slaughter of the livestock so the event was not without its blunt and bloody element which inspired bonfires and other rituals associated with sacrifice. Each of us has seen the evolution of the annual celebration of Halloween, a diversion which changes as we age. As children the preoccupation with costumes was overwhelming.

Rainy Sunday Morning

As I sit here on an early Sunday morning sipping my tepid and consequently distasteful black coffee, listening to CBC French radio classical music (religious chants and predictable piano numbers), watching sparrows dart in and out of an unexplained hole in the back yard cedar hedge, examining the gloomy grey and foggy skies in the distance and rejoicing that I have nothing better to do, I am thankful that it is drizzling outside. I have justification not to go bicycling which is the only physical exercise I get any longer. I have abandoned any interest in walking. My knees can’t take it and the pace is paradoxically too slow to satisfy my inextinguishable need to get on with it. Besides yesterday in the chilly morning air and brilliant sunshine we bicycled at least ten kilometers clad in layers of high-collared woolen sweaters, generous cotton jackets and toasty gloves so I’ve sufficiently expiated my guilt in that department. Languidly surveying my domain I have the sense of examining the scene of a recent battle, at the very least a kerfuffle. Upon reflection so much commotion transpires even in a week, unexpected events and the accommodation of blips in plans, addressing unfolding essentials, analyzing picayune details, tending to annoying things, recovering from indulgences, coping with family, aging, dying and the daily prosaic burdens of living. When one is at last thankfully dismissed of obligation it is like surfacing from the suffocating depths for air, both invigorating and resentful. I am old and experienced enough to recognize that this temporary reprieve is to be relished. Securing the ravelled edges of life is no small triumph. When one is afforded the privilege of respite it is nothing more than standing motionless in the deceivingly calm eye of a storm. One step outside the arena of composure risks starting up all the machinery of life’s perpetual assaults once again. The inescapable news of the day included a reference to the “Wealthy Barber”. As far as I can tell his secret is nothing more than deprivation, something approaching asceticism as a religion or maybe replacing it with an equally severe obsession with the accumulation of money. As they say “You can’t have money and things”. Take your pick. He makes a virtue of living in a 1,300 square foot house without a basement (purportedly because he has nothing to store). Give me a break! Nothing to store but the money he never spends! At moments like this – on a leaden Sunday morning when one has been granted an instant to think back upon what one has done – there is the temptation to embrace austerity. But it is a self-discipline which is about as compelling as being disinterested in tomorrow’s breakfast after having had a full evening dinner. Think of the starkness of consumption, the denial of all those trinkets. It is an abstinence which is not for the pusillanimous! Last evening was a desirable Saturday night, an ornament to any Sunday morning. It was an escape to a candle-lit Italian restaurant where the heavy white porcelain dishes clattered and the rising wave of customers’ chatter blurred the invisible walls between us three and our dining neighbours. There were vodka martinis at the polished wooden bar first then at table our sommelier-in-training (James Dean celebrating his new leather bomber jacket) pored intently over the extensive wine list, having first spent the afternoon at a winery with his young companions, sipping Shiraz and Cabernet in promotion of their awakening life-time skills. “We’re going to enjoy ourselves this evening!”, he elatedly proclaimed upon informing the server of his considered choice. We settled comfortably into the shell and orbit of our convocation, loosening the tongues of tales and anecdotes, sharing some off-colour jokes and contemplating the taste of things to come, promoted by good bread and tasty extra virgin olive oil and Balsamic vinegar. Remarkably within the space of one week we have dined in the same place with people who flew in from New Zealand and another who is about to fly out to South Africa. On our lips was talk of an upcoming jaunt to the island of Sardinia in the Mediterranean. How magically the wheels of life turn! Now I am back on earth on a comparatively dull Sunday morning examining the drops of water on the leaves of the trees outside the kitchen window. What purpose is there to speculate about the future? Does it matter where we’ve come from in the past? The once pleasant present has already evaporated, exchanging its manifestations for memories. Sunday morning is at best an interlude to contemplate. It does nothing to change what has been, is or will be. Yet how precious is the moment, that magic feeling of nowhere to go!

Tea with Miss Jill

Funny, but over all these years Miss Jill and I have never actually had any tea when we’ve congregated for our now ritual Friday afternoon tea. There has been coffee certainly, and Sherry from the side-board many times on a chilly autumnal day or a frosty winter’s eve, and once even some Cointreau (which I personally detest and therefore welcomed the opportunity to unload), but never tea. Sometimes we have nothing at all to drink and we content ourselves merely to imbibe the gossip, quips, cynicisms and private, uninhibited explosions which we are wont to intercommunicate. Tea by osmosis so to speak. In a word, we devour one another’s company with or without anything to slurp. Imperceptibly our end-of-week custom has altered. We were for example originally habituated to roost in the sanctum sanctorum of my inner chambers, lounging about in large stuffed and leather-bound armchairs splayed upon the precious Persians, metaphorically snapping our collective fingers at industry and commerce (frequently a dying thought on a late Friday afternoon in any event). Gradually as our symposiums became more regular our venue changed to the front, side office wherein I conduct the real work of my business and in which we were by virtue of the room’s austerity and comparative economy plunged even more forcefully into the substance of our communion. As with true friends engaged in any reality, the loss of frills didn’t diminish whatever the depth of our parley. Recently I remarked to myself how salubrious these conventions are primarily because of the immediate and heightened levity they promote. As anyone knows, a good laugh is good medicine. And cackle we do! Our personalities have since the day we met been plumb compatible, each of us knowing exactly how to rebound off the other. Even in the midst of unspeakable personal displeasure we unhesitatingly rise above it and soon find ourselves engaged in a comic free-for-all. If either of us should dare to pull rank by succumbing to anything even remotely adult or mature, the other precipitously counters the assault and instantly reduces the conversation once again to the wholesome and level field of playfulness. No doubt you too have a very good friend with whom you can openly confide your most treasured thoughts. It’s an addendum to be longed for. So often we are trounced by the crush of life and without a ventilation we are further distressed by having to surrender to the demolition. It would be passably acceptable if we were merely befuddled by the miseries of living, but more often than not we must surrender under agreed conditions which inevitably spell defeat. How welcome then is the attentive ear of a complaisant and harmonic soul! Occasionally our private forum is, like the piercing of the corporate veil, laid bare by the unanticipated visit of another, someone who - not surprisingly in a small town - is frequently known to us both and whom as a result we beckon enthusiastically to join the fray. It is near impossible to belie the purpose of our nefarious concert; rollicking bravado imminently throws wide open the door! I thrill to see others so conspicuously participatory! The boardroom agenda screams divestment and unburdening! Howls of laughter invariably ensue! It is the lost art of turning misfortune on its head by ridiculing its flagellation. Tea!