So, How’s Retirement?

Friends ask kindly, “How are you finding retirement?” and I quip that, so far, I am finding the ‘tired’ in retirement. Eagles Mere is quiet now that we are past the middle of the month. The days spool by, undifferentiated by the predictable hum of a school week. 

“What are you doing with all your free time?” a colleague texts. “Is it fabulous?”

Perhaps it is; mostly it feels strange, as if I am untethered from all I know. Seth is away for a bit, caring for his sister, so there is a lot of time to think and muse and fret about all I am not getting done, but here’s a list, in no particular order, of my activities to date:

• Water the plants. Walk the dogs.

• Mourn the bug that afflicted and decimated my cherry tomatos.

• Scan every book into Libub per Seth’s request before shelving it in the new house.

• Worry that we have already run out of bookshelves.

• Write thank you notes.

• Launch my new website and begin to meet with clients.

• Miss having an amazing assistant.

• Take boxes of books I never should have brought from Cleveland to our Eagles Mere bookstore.

• Go across the ocean in a big ship and fall in love all over again with my husband of 40 years.

• Fill enormous trash bags with paper as we unpack box after box.

• Make lunch. 

• Copy and paste watercolor demos from Instagram into a folder on my Notes app.

• Fly to Maine from DC to watch Atticus’ team play volleyball at Bowdoin.

• Attend board meetings–The Heads Network, One Schoolhouse, Agnes Irwin, the EM Museum and the EM conservancy.

• Check the weather. A lot.

• Read.

• Consider where we will hang pictures when Seth returns.

• Wonder what my new life will be like and when it will start to feel real.

• Fumble for light switches in the new house as I try to remember their whereabouts in the dark.

• Lift Sclepi up and down the stairs.

• Try not to think about school and all that is happening there.

• Bribe the dogs with treats when they bark while I’m on Zoom calls 

• Bravely confront rodent guts that Phoebe has left on the step as a gift. Call Atticus for moral support. Miss having Mike come right over to dispose of said guts. Appreciate the fact that Phoebe now knows she lives here.

• Do a lot of laundry.

• Mourn a beloved friend who died too soon and whose absence leaves a huge hole in my life.

• Say goodbye to our beloved rescue pup, Diva.

• Text cat memes to my son until he goes off Instagram.

• Text cute holiday craft ideas to Miranda.

• Confer with Cordelia about all manner of things.

• Celebrate the electrician’s arrival–feel sad when he cannot install the two light fixtures I had hoped he would put up.

• Look at fancy recipes on Instagram. Save some of them.

• Consider essays I might write–or the book I might write.

• Realize I have too many books, too many clothes and too much china.

• Fill out the paperwork to volunteer at the women’s prison 

• Flit from one half finished task to the next.

• Admire my pumpkins and chrysanthemums.Welcome the plumber who arrives to fix the rotten egg smell in the water.

• Buy a bulb planter and bulb fertilizer for the100 bulbs that arrived today, but choose not to start on this project because it is raining.

• Go to the supermarket on a weekday morning.

• Connect with a number of amazing women on Zoom.

• Talk to my best friend during the day. 

• Plan the PD presentations I’ve been invited to give at a school in January. 

• Make lists and then lists of lists 

• Ration the shows I like on Netflix, so I don’t finish them and need to search for new ones. 

• Walk around the lake and note how different the landscape is in the fall 

• Wonder if Eagles Mere, off season, is a bit like a forced Zen retreat–all in silence,

• Make appointments to see new doctors, which means spending many minutes on hold 

• Set up my watercolor station on the third floor (with Atticus’ permission).

• Take luxurious baths whenever I want in my purple (!) clawfoot tub!

• Schedule clients.

• Work on setting up accounting software to bill clients.

• Talk to my pets as if I expect they will answer.

• Miss Seth’s Halloween lawn decor and the lack of trick or treaters.

• Make a list of craft supplies to make an elf house out of a mason jar

As I re-read, I acknowledge that there is lots to appreciate in this new cadence, even as I strive to be patient with myself and the time I need to adjust to a new chapter.A nd what about you? How are you spending your days? What are we doing with what Mary Oliver reminds us is our “one wild and precious life.” I am working to savor this gift of time.