CPD

As was the case last year, let the record reflect that I am having a great time, but also that my professional development plan for June One, Nineteen to May Thirty-One, Twenty will be a repetition of the last: conferences, attendance at an in-house presentation and performance of a lecture aboard the SC.  Diligent study as always, even though the thought of escape bubbles up ever more strongly.  Last year was not the last, but with the MFA and the Princess may yet this be?  Time will show.  Ever forward.

Does The "Boss" Really Know What He Is Doing?

Lazy Saturday.  Lie-in after a busy Friday at the Board and then H1.  No time to draft a note from within those walls, on EF's birthday, but likely there will be, come the fall... And no desire to start the moose encounter story until the morrow.

(points if you can remember the identity of EF, in years to come... think of your best client...)

The fall.  Three months away, and the mind set to wondering how it might look.  The potential trip to mark its start on the Labour Day weekend for a second NLD.  Then, ideally, Montserrat and the Eels in Barca, before a double Westjet flight back, proper Visas in hand.  Can you imagine it?  All too easily, in fact.

Maybe the Boss does know what is happening?  I would scarce believe it, yet I can agree that there seems an underlying magic at work.  Midsummer's Night seems to line up perfectly for that weekend, and the rest we leave to the outcome of meetings continents away. 

The autumn timing fits.  To sit, together, and consider the fate and future.  Make key introductions.  Consider the condo, the office.  Whether the MFA offers up some travel time after all, in pursuit of Caribbean and Central American and African dreams.  Tying all together.  Dreary November the moment for decisions.

For it would be a substantial path forward, trajectory-altering, even as it remains within your pace and control and coming as it does with such a lead time wherein the creeping gradualism itself helps convince of the path's correctness. 

Time is a curious beast, never more so in its coincidental workings here.  I cannot shake the sense that, from every angle, day and night, it all comes back around toward the same idea.  That the time, perhaps, impossibly, has come. 

Heh.  Wondrous strange.  And therefore as a stranger, give it welcome?

May I Suggest Something?

Another Father's Day come and gone, nicely spent in Moncton while retirement festivities occur up in SJS.  Nice to be able to pop down for brief visits, with the bonus of the Broadway show and the Pal rendezvous.  The comments from the seniors tour host about marriage and exercise and the tiredness of taking pills hit home, in a way that is expected.  The books spilling out from every wall, and other memories of that house enough to make you ponder distinct moments of time.  Even the daily newspapers, opened to pages summarizing travel to Antarctica and Greece, seemed to speak in ways beyond coincidence.  It was a nice trip, and the falling asleep of both the iron athlete and you helping to cross another thought off the list.

The doctor's suggestion to be active and reduce the paunch is a good one, offered in the customary deferential manner of old that brought a smile.  Can you take the next month, and... ?  Always the question.  Sadly the answer, too often, is no.  Make it yes this time, and see what the change brings.  The office and the home cleansing too.  The Raptors have won it, the Arsenal season does not start for awhile, and Black Tot day remains distant on the horizon.  Find the motivation for that, and the writing too.  As you settle into life post-trip, post-40. 

10 flights, 4 airlines, 4 continents = 40 year celebration

In the end it worked out.  All of it.  (Except maybe the Arsenal loss, though even that build-up and loss proved fun).  London, Doha, Mombasa, Delphi, Marathea, Olympia, Symposiums, Siestas, Nafplio, Epidavros, Parthenon, Alobar, Attica, and Rhodes.  Even a stopover for the Raptors in Game 5 reminiscent of 2004's June fifth sporting disappointment on the Red Mile.

Seeds have been planted, as have new olive trees.  In particular, the unlikely/inevitable evening of the Raptors and Modelo and Boasty (played repeatedly despite my not enjoying it) arose due to an unexpected, long dormant, and untapped energy.  It played out as hilariously expected, all these years later.  What comes next will be interesting, but nothing to dissuade from the conclusions wrought on the sands of the Indian Ocean and shores of the Aegean.  There is a sense of making firmer decisions sooner than you think, lest an unwanted dowry get in the way.  Though I like the idea of this farewell tour to be sure.

Other thoughts from the trip could fill a book, and the notebook sits replete with tales and words and stories.  The dictaphones (new and old) are also filled with some gems to be transcribed.  The task at hand is now to work at the apartment, the exercise, and the preparations for the writing seminars.  The next two months shall be important.  Use the time wisely.  For you are wise now, old man.  You are forty!