Back to Basics

Novelty is not something I pretend to cultivate. The closest I am likely to get to anything new is to repeat what I haven't done for a short while.  By and large I focus exclusively upon what I have always done.  This is not to suggest I haven't an appetite for adventure; it's just that my reality doesn't match my imagination.  Briefly today while sipping a double-espresso coffee at Starbucks in Bells Corners I investigated some purported "saltbox" real estate in Nova Scotia (just in case the mounting health insurance premiums should ever prohibit our winter sojourn to the United States of America).  As uninventive as the exploration may have been, it quickly became apparent that a) nothing is cheap - anywhere; b) the Germans and Americans have likely already bought up everything of interest in the entire Province; and c) it's all unnecessarily premature - and whatever might be discovered now is certain shortly to be out-of-date.

Within minutes I was back to being like the cat that's got the cream with my old, boring self.  Really, what's the pressure!  Earlier today I had had a perfectly delicious breakfast; I had gone for a 10-km bicycle ride (in spite of my wonky knees); and only moments before I had scoped the new arrivals at my car dealership (an uninhibited pleasure singularly characteristic of a late Sunday afternoon snoop).  To pine for anything further is just plain greedy!

Unquestionably the privilege of having nothing to preoccupy oneself is for me at least a novelty of its  own.  One jokes about pinching oneself from the nirvana of retirement. Yet it is proving to be a shortcut to paradise. The price is no more than the usual restriction of time - a measure which remarkably appears to accelerate commensurately with enjoyment.  It promotes a reminder to relish each moment.

As much as we appreciate the Gulf Coast in the winter we are equally enamoured by Almonte in the summer. These casual summer days are all that we had hoped for. Whatever ambition I nurture from time to time to travel abroad is soon diminished by a mere reflection upon what is here.  In fact it wouldn't be the first time we pointedly asked ourselves, "Why leave home?" Perhaps this sounds dreadfully saccharin of me to advance the status quo so enthusiastically.  But I am mindful of the prescription for inner contemplation. It can be dangerously possible to miss what it right before one's eyes.  For the time being I think I'll just keep doing what I've always done.