Cocoon of Boon

The heat wave lingered again today, heralding the kick-off with another soft, balmy ether under a steamy blue sky. We bicycled as usual on Country Street, adjacent the fields of mounting emerald corn stalks and amid the lavender bouquet of the roadside flowers. The normally rhapsodic poplar trees were motionless in the morning stillness. The tolerable heat was increasingly oppressive. I wound up the sleeves of my shirt.

A festive hangover from Canada Day also persisted. We resolved to go to the golf club with a friend for brunch. When we arrived there however the parking lot was full and the club house was milling with activity. We hastily withdrew and headed north to Renfrew County for an alternate destination.  Though our first inclination was Neat Café in Burnstown we considered going instead to Cedar Cove Resort on White Lake (but a cautious preliminary phone call confirmed the lakeside dining room was closed for the next two days).  No matter.  The choice to go to Neat Café proved as always to be an excellent one. Though the parking lot there was also brimming it turned out that most of the interlopers were in a meeting of some sort at the rear of the building, not in the restaurant. We three positioned ourselves comfortably in the mottled shade at a small round table on the patio then ordered our wood-fired pizza, tuna melt, Greek salad and iced coffees. The barista and the owner of the establishment chatted with us, echoing our enchantment with the resplendent summer day. Slowly the sun gyrated above our heads and, as it moved from behind the towering pine tree, began drilling a shard of hot white light onto the edge of our congregation.  We deftly shifted tables to another nearby but under the porch overhang - where we continued our languid luncheon and whimsical society.

Afterwards it was a progression of mesmerizing detail.  The bliss of the late summer afternoon was indescribably pleasant, at times soporific. The country fields were thriving with luxuriance. It was impossible not to be smug about the weather and the scenery. Everything contrived to perfection!

It is not every day that one is granted the indulgence of unmitigated pleasure, free from the absorption of want or concern. Within the scope of one’s admittedly narrow experience there remains the opportunity to fulfill one’s intellectual appetite for artistic satisfaction.  It may involve a submission to an exact or even restricted focus. The transitional moment is not unlike the evolution of the butterfly from the chrysalis.