Soft Blue Day

Living on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina (a distinction I presume to arrogate after having resided here for four months with another yet to come) there are two things I do every morning (even before I get out of bed).  First, I check the weather. Second, I check the tide chart. I conduct those enquiries by grabbing my iPhone on the bedside table and tuning into the weather App and the internet. The forecast this morning wasn't alluring - a cloudy day was predicted. That meant I didn't bother to check the tide chart.  I perform this preliminary investigation every morning not only because it directs what I shall do during the day (rain for example is a dampening factor) but also because it tells me whether I may linger under the duvet with impunity.  If a sunny day is foreseeable it burns me up to imagine missing even a moment of sunshine and blue sky.

Donald Trump

There was a time when I practically prided myself upon my ignorance of political activity.  Don't get me wrong, I always - without exception - voted in any election, whether municipal, provincial or federal.  But my lead-up interest in the outcome was token at best and it usually predominated the local municipal elections far more than the provincial or federal battles. Years ago when I began practicing law in Almonte in 1976 and assumed the office and swivel chair of the late Raymond A. Jamieson, QC, I was initiated to an admiration for American politics by Mr. Jamieson.  At the time I thought it somewhat peculiar that Mr. Jamieson specifically preferred American politics but as I got to know him I learned to attribute the peculiarity to his own general eccentricity.  Now - forty years later - after having spent the winter on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina and having been submerged in the unfolding fortunes of the Republican nomination caucuses, I can see precisely what I imagine Mr. Jamieson so loved about American politics.

Dreams

I have never slept particularly well.  Perhaps I am what is described as a "light sleeper".  The fact is, I sleep best in the oddest circumstances - for example, in the dentist's chair, in the waiting lounge at an airport, on a chaise longue by the pool or when sitting at my desk.  But when it comes to going to bed and sleeping at night - unless I am at the point of utter exhaustion - I am a reluctant candidate.  This lack of routine accommodation means that I have trouble getting to bed and then trouble staying asleep.  As a result I spend a good deal of my time in bed lying awake or half-asleep.

The Greedy Hedonist

I have said already, that on a subject so important to us all as happiness, we should listen with pleasure to any man’s experience or experiments, even though he were but a plough-boy, who cannot be supposed to have ploughed very deep into such an intractable soil as that of human pains and pleasures, or to have conducted his researches upon any very enlightened principles.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (January 1, 1859)

Thomas De Quincey

There is an astonishing inertia acquired over 40 years of zealous and uninterrupted employment. It is a seasoned and inescapable condition, an unrelenting propulsion, a perpetual and seemingly unstoppable ambition. It does however eventually subside, almost precipitously. Quite to my astonishment I am cultivating a habit of a new order: unmitigated leisure, my own brand of purposelessness, as fine and bland as the beach on which I aimlessly stroll and roll. Instead of bolting to the ringing of the telephone or the knocking at the door I listen to the soothing chorus of the churning waves of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the desktop music for nowhere to go, nothing to do.

Should we choose our friends carefully?

To cast the choice of one's friends as a calculated selection process is to counsel a dangerous admonition. Except for the most egregious examples, the advice (even if directed to the young and ostensibly foolish) has about as much authenticity as an arranged marriage. Even if love were by some febrile distortion of pragmatism represented as the comparatively serious business of family and economics, friendship is supposed to be the playground of relationships. To impose stricture on friendship is to contaminate it; it is the one association which can be free of sycophantic or parasitic utility.

Windy Day

From where I was on the beach today the roiling Ocean appeared to be above me, a massive pool straining to break its banks.  The sea was being churned by a gale force wind from the northeast, seemingly pushing the burgeoning volumes of water to breach its natural bounds. The Ocean had the appearance of a huge bowl of soup which might spill over its edges, in danger of slopping out of its vast container.

Busy day!

It would be a shameful exaggeration to suggest that my timetable today was one of endless drudgery. Yet within the context of retirement there is at least some thrust to the poetic observation. Having to acknowledge anything approaching dutiful performance is guaranteed to spawn a veneer of labour. The obnoxious element of exertion is a transgression upon the habit of cultivated leisure which has lately seen incremental enlargement. The science of nature abhorring a vacuum is amply illustrated among those of us no longer caught in the web of employment.  My matutinal routine for example has dilated over the past two years from what was once a succinct 30-minute ceremony dedicated to a ritual breakfast to what is now a two-hour vaporization involving prolonged cups of coffee, progressive courses of mixed fruit, protein boost and even a gloss on dessert. Small wonder therefore that the imposition of the most inconsequential obligation succeeds to contaminate a life of inactivity.