Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Carrots and Retirement



     Rusty Shipe, Anne Vartanian, Rusty’s four-year-old cousin Jimmy, and I had a project that summer.
Anne and I were in third grade, so Rusty must have been in fifth, and we were all digging. We had chosen an unused spot in Rusty’s grandmother’s garden and we were digging as if our lives depended on it. To this day, I have no idea what the final purpose was, but we dug one big darn hole that summer, a hole to be proud of.

          I like a goal. Even a short-term goal, like a resolution to hopscotch from one end of those driveway chalk lines to the other. My goals grew and contracted with life. There was the larger one of college, and then the more immediate one of life with small children. Instead of deciphering Plato’s philosophy of the cave, I was now devising that week’s activity for my Girl Scout troop. I still had a purpose to my day.

          A couple of hard-won degrees through night school, twenty years as a teacher, and here I am, retired with what much of society might view as the end of the line. No more need for goals. Time to just sit back and watch other people scrabble up that mountain of ambition.

          It might be those darn Puritans and their work ethic tapping me on the shoulder, but bus trips, lunches, and golf aren’t enough. I fully intend on living to ninety three, and baking all our bread, macraméing plant hangers and embroidering blue jeans (as I did as a bored housewife in the 1970s) won’t cut it either.

          The purpose of my writing might be as vague as digging that hole in 1957, but like that hole, I’m doing it because it’s something tangible I can produce in my own way, at my own speed, and when I’m done, I can say –

“Well, would you look at that!”
         
           


16 comments:

  1. Oh gosh- I embroidered jeans too- that just made me think of all the flowers..remember flower power? LOL

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    1. I really enjoyed embroidery, too. But a person only needs so many pillows and wall hangings.

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  2. I think you have just resolved an argument that I was having with myself!

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  3. You should do whatever you want in retirement:)

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  4. I can completely relate! A certain person in my life is always urging me to "do something" with my writing, which I think translates into "it's only worth something if you can sell it", but for me right now the thrill is in seeing it myself. Along with maybe a few other people who I have no obligation to please.
    And my sister and I dug a hole like that one summer with equally unclear objective!

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    1. Nothing like a good session of digging to clear the mind.

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  5. A writer never retires. Writing will carry you well into your nineties.

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  6. When we quit we're dead so keep moving. As one of my friends said about her husband. ,"If he doesn't move I might have to dust him!"

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  7. I don't believe I've ever set a goal in my life, unless planning to live older than my grandma did is a goal.
    I'll do the best I can towards that, but it really isn't in my hands is it?
    I just take things as they come, accept milestones passed and keep on keeping on.

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  8. I'm reading a book called "The Gift of Years" and the idea of "retirement" is discussed about what it really is, and what it means to different people. I like a schedule with things to do myself, and perhaps you've got a novel or a memoir in your future! :-)

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    1. Well, Djan, book number one is listed to the right of this post, and I'm doing the final edits on book #2.

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  9. I have no intention of retiring. I still like to create and be busy. that whole retiring thing is a boondoggle. you may not like your job or be tired of it so it's good to be able to stop doing something you don't really want to do anymore but people need to be doing something or else they just sit there and waste away.

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  10. I've never been much of a goal-setter, but I think writing serves a similar purpose in my life, too. It gives me a sense of accomplishment even when it's just a three-paragraph blog post. So I get where you're coming from! (Though personally I think macrameing plant hangers is pretty impressive too in its own way.)

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  11. I agree with you! When one goal is finished, you simply make new goals. I intend to keep on doing that till the good Lord calls me home! My Dad is the same. We just celebrated his 90th birthday. His goals have shrunk somewhat as his health has imposed unfortunate limitations, but he still remains the goal setter of his ranching days. He is my example.
    P.S. I love the story about you and your co-shovellers digging the hole. Question: If it takes four kids a whole summer to dig a hole, how long would it take one kid to dig half a hole? Something my dad would have hit me with back in the day . . .

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