As a matter of record...

Between enthralling appointments today with an ophthalmologist and an endodontist, I pursued my inextinguishable interest in photography and humanity. Admittedly my gusto was heightened by the fluidity of the medical profession. After months of harbouring speculation about impending cataract ripening and a potentially defective root canal I was at last positioned to address both matters head on.  I now regard my former molar in a plastic bag; and my sartorial amusements "focus" on reading glasses. Between those poles we overcame a four-hour wait by visiting an expert photography store and by acquainting ourselves with a local entrepreneur whose greatest achievement in life shone as his family and grandchildren (a distillation I invariably find heartening). The variation was illustrative of the acme of science and nature, the juxtaposition of technical detail and ineffable love.

We were thrown into the harmony of singular people and business today, confronting idioms with which we are unfamiliar - the esoteric perambulations of skilled surgical specialists and the less than synthetic realities of a working man. Merging the two was the universality of knowledge, commitment, clarity and performance. It soothed me to be in the arena of bustle doing something other than fashioning options. From the outset today each encounter with commerce or society was gilded by talent and interest. It was a sonorous performance on every level. Though I have no right to expect providence, it is magical when it happens.

While it thrills me to compartmentalize the noticeable features of my life and being - an obsession which affords me tranquillity - I recognize the need to deal with obstruction. In that latter process I shepherd myself by themes of exactitude and dispatch shamelessly allied with traditional standards of measurement. The latest collage of my life has involved its blunt physical elements and the artistic toxin of technology. Through each - whether the enlargement of my hearing or vision for example; or the streaming of sound and sight through the advanced electronic devices - I have cleansed the atmosphere. This evening's elemental sweet of raw apple sauce and pure maple syrup is representative. My object is forever to capture simplicity and efficiency, a tact which of necessity is characterized by reduction and precision.

In the rambling discourse between me and the cab driver we effortlessly narrowed our waffling opinions to agree that we're fortunate to be alive and to have the ones we love. I privately marvelled that my partner's lunch today was a Middle Eastern vegetarian dish - itself an expression of meticulous though exotic choice. Likewise the senior client services manager had only moments earlier enthusiastically accounted her triumph upon having secured palliative care for her elderly mother. Like a clear stream in the bedrock the predominance of family insinuated all that transpired.

For the next week I have the indisputable privilege of ignoring exercise and domestic duty. It is only the elapse of time which will strengthen the assault upon my fuselage. I intend to profit by the uncommon necessity. As though in preparation for the purgatory that is existentialism, I have denuded myself of anxiety, removed and refreshed my material tokens, straightened and folded my costumes, wound the clocks, washed the car, flung open the windows, cut my hair, polished my nails and moisturized my skin. At my age - and in my condition of dilapidation - anything I can do to advance a sense of bien être is perfectly tolerable. Certainly some of the hysteria is as inventive as a child on Christmas morning, but the awakening is there.