It is leap year, so I will leap. That’s what you do, I hear. I have been trying to leap into a new life on my own. I am almost certain that I have done, maybe a little. I had to turn my back on the past thirty years. It is over, people are dead and gone. The money is spent and on we must go because time remains yet. For a while I sat thinking about things I never imagined thinking about. “Just suppose”, I thought. “Suppose I moved to Mexico and spent the rest of my life there?” Is that a possibility? Why would I ever want to do that? Why would I not want to do that? What other apparently crazy things are there to do yet? Is it possible to move to England? I know I could move to California or Florida or Newfoundland or Alaska or Nova Scotia. Where should I leap to? Should I leap further? Is Leamington the end of leaping? How about a half-leap?
I am not a person who does well in the heat but I am increasingly tired of snow, cold weather. Perhaps I could find some way of spending at least a little of winter elsewhere. That would be a half leap that would make life more interesting. I could half-leap to affordable Nova Scotia for summer, then someplace warmer in winter. California, Florida are a bit expensive for me to bear. Not a realistic possibility to go there on my own and pay the whole fee. Mexico is cheaper, for certain but it sure was hot. To keep it low cost, I would have to walk most places I went. Walking is Ok. Walking is a thing I have always enjoyed but in Puerto Vallarta, it was a challenge. Whew! I was gasping for air and sweating my way up and down the hills of Puerto Vallarta for a couple of recent weeks. If I had prepared better, it might have been less exhausting. Walking in the heat this time was a definite downside. The upside is that sitting on the verandah, the terrace, the balcony, allowed those constant Pacific ocean breezes to lift the sun off my shoulders and dry my sweat. I suppose I could do that? Would that be the right thing to do?
I am not at all convinced that the heat and humidity on a February day are righteous things for a winter-climate-born boy to enjoy. It is just wrong, somehow. Winter is a fact of life. The cold and snow come every year, it is the way of things. The earth turns, tips toward and away from the sun. That is what is. This is righteous. Endure and enjoy are living. To fly someplace more convenient during the inconvenient times seems like a sort of ‘chickening out’. Going off and spending earth’s resources as well as my own on something like warm days and restful nights…unfair. Just because I can, should I?
Robert On The Air 