Escaping the Rain

We're getting close to departure. Things have taken an odd twist aside from an accelerated dénouement. For one thing it is unusual to have escaped a torrential rainfall this afternoon while fulfilling my daily bicycle ride. Normally I wouldn't have ventured abroad in the first place.  But today - even though I knew the weather was threatening and unpredictable - I decided it was more strategic to exercise than to remain dry. Whether fortuitously or not the rain didn't commence until I had already landed at Bayfront Park and assumed my customary posture overlooking Sarasota Bay - where I meaningfully reflected that only four days remain here.

Early this morning - or probably late last night - I got a tongue-in-cheek email from a crony confessing his recurring submission to the abject allure of things. It was of course a springboard for my personal shallowness; as such I willingly fuelled the fires and regurgitated my own erstwhile débacles, a minority I am increasingly wont to share. He's an inveterate Hedonist so I am at least in good company.

My revival from this potentially lurid declension was another email from friends celebrating their corporate delight upon the birthday of "man's best friend" - and comically the shameless resource of our serendipitous encounter many years ago on Hilton Head Island.

By unprecedented devotion I have succeeded to exhaust the past and capitalize upon the present, not so much as either a catharsis or renewal but rather as a matter of intellectual necessity. While sailing along the bike path today, bordering the green waters of the Gulf of Mexico, I awakened somewhat cynically to the similarity of absorption in the present to the harshness of human flesh when viewed too closely. Whence derives our love? Is it merely Nature's answer to immediacy and need, a scribbled memo? However do we manage to linger among the resources when the appetite has faded, when the Venusian orbit has vanished?

I was in no haste to conclude my bicycle ride - notwithstanding the enlarging threat of rain (which never materialized to the point of dilution). My Protestant Work Ethic had been adequately tempered by 8:30 am this morning upon the conclusion of my much-anticipated congress with a local endodontist. He confirmed my suspicion and echoed my inclination to defer the treatment to my Canadian dental generalist - whom I have already arranged to consult immediately upon our return. As always the achievement is not the end but the determination of the beginning. How can one know where to go without knowing where to start?  What began in the middle of the night as a truncated resolution has sprung into a studied dive in the right direction. We celebrated the adjunct by tucking into a hearty breakfast at Blue Dolphin Café - French toast, pancakes, bacon, sausage and eggs.

Afterwards it was the final visit to the Island's only grocery store to replenish our larder for 72 hours before submitting to the favour of local restaurateurs.  And to buy English muffins, Kerrygold Pure Butter and organic almond butter!