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For as it turns out, one can visit the past quite pleasantly, as long as one does so expecting nearly every aspect of it to have changed.

And having imagined at one time that one resided at the very center of this little universe, one is barely recognized, if recognized at all. Thus do the wise counsel that one should steer far and wide of the old Homestead.

Perhaps for those returning after a long absence, the combination of heartfelt sentiments and the ruthless influence of time can only spawn disappointments. The landscape is not as beautiful as one remembered it. The local cider is not as sweet. Quaint buildings have been restored beyond recognition, while fine old traditions have lapsed to make away for mystifying new entertainment.

If one has been absent for decades from a place that one once held dear, the wise with generally counsel that one should never return there again.

Showing a sense of personal restraint that was almost out of character, the Count had restricted himself to two succinct pieces of parental advice. The first was that if one did not master ones circumstances, one was bound to be mastered by them; and the second was Montaigne’s maxim that the surest sign of wisdom is constant cheerfulness.

He was wise enough to know that life does not proceed by leaps and bounds. It unfolds. At any given moment, it is the manifestation of a thousand transitions. Our faculties wax and wane, our experiences accumulate, and our opinions evolve – if not glacially, then at least gradually. Such that the events of an average day are less likely to transform who we are as a pinch of pepper is to transform a stew.

“If I am to play the piano in Paris”, said Sophia after a moment, “I only wish that you could be there in the audience to hear me. “
The count smiled.
“I assure you, my dear, were you to play the piano on the moon, I would hear every chord.”

For what matters in life is not whether we receive a round of applause; what matters is whether we have the courage to venture forth despite the uncertainty of aclaim.

Continued...

What husband and wife have not found themselves suddenly unnerved by the fear that they might not ever have something urgent, impassioned, or surprising to say to each other again? So it is with good reason that most of us meet this dangerous interstice with a sense of foreboding.

Surely, the span of time between the placing of an order and the arrival of appetizers is one of the most perilous in all human interaction. What young lovers have not found themselves at this junction in a silence so sudden, so seemingly insurmountable that it threatens to cast doubt upon their chemistry as a couple?

I suppose a room is the summation of all that has happened inside it.

Perhaps it is inescapable that when our lives are in flux, despite the comfort of our beds, we are bound to keep ourselves awake grappling with anxieties – no matter how great or small, how real or imagined.

But, alas, sleep did not come so easily to our weary friend. Like in a reel in which the dancers form two rows, so that one of their number can come skipping brightly down the aisle, a concern of the Count would present itself for his consideration, with a flourish, and then take its place at the end of the line so that the next concern could come dancing to the fore.

If you are ever in doubt, just remember that unlike adults, children want to be happy. So they still have the ability to take the greatest pleasure in the simplest things.

We must all eventually adopt a fundamental framework, some reasonably coherent system of causes and effects that will help us make sense not simply of momentous event, but of all the little actions and interactions that constitute our daily lives –be they deliberate or spontaneous, inevitable or unforeseen.

Yes, a bottle of wine was the ultimate distillation of time and place; a poetic expression of individuality itself. Yet here it was, cast back into the sea of anonymity that realm of averages and unknowns.

If patient wasn’t so easily tested, then it would hardly be a virtue…