North of Sixty

Dunkirk NY – Every morning for the past lifetime or so, I have gotten out of bed, made coffee, and sat down to read the newspaper. It is the most ingrained habit I possess. When I used to have the paper form of the newspaper delivered, it was a daily ritual that could not really be repeated. Once I had read the newspaper, that was it. The Internet changed all that, as the digital version of the newspaper could now keep up with the 24/7 news cycle. Breaking news could now be read on the newspaper as well as watching it on TV or listening to the radio. I do not really get my news from any other source. I used to listen to NPR’s All Things Considered in the evenings as my alternate news source, but even that has dried up with the digital availability of newspapers.

I have noted, though, that this has now begun to disturb my morning routine. When the analog paper arrived, everything in it was new, containing information and articles I had not read before. The digital newspaper, however, arrives with very little new. Maybe the articles are re-arranged, but the contents are seldom “new” in the sense that there is information I don’t already know or haven’t read since my last evening glance before bedtime. The “news” is no longer new. I find a quick scan of the headlines is about all I need to catch up. My news-reading habit is now spread throughout the day rather than concentrated in the morning.

With this post, I am going to try to shake up this morning routine. Rather than get up, make coffee and read the news, I am going to see what happens if I get up, make coffee, and write first thing in the morning. I am thinking there may be some advantages to this approach that will make me a more prolific writer and get me some more much-needed practice. Advantages such as:

• Producing more writing. I have tended to read quite a bit in the morning, and when I was working, it was often the case that reading kept me from arriving at the office as early as perhaps I should have been arriving. My reading sessions could be as long as two hours on occasion. And then, throughout the course of the day, finding time to write became difficult.
• A feeling of accomplishment to start the day. The news today is quite depressing, and leaves me feeling sort of glum and, in some ways, helpless. Getting some sort of writing done in the morning might change this perspective.
• Clearing my head. Writing clears my head and releases all those things I’ve been pondering over the day. Going through an exercise first thing in the morning that clears my head may result in a better mood, and may also spark more motivation throughout the day.

That last issue, motivation, is perhaps the key to it all. Now that I am mostly in charge of providing my own motivation for getting through each day, I am finding that producing that motivation is somewhat difficult to do. I’m very thankful that I am not much of a TV watcher, as I suspect that TV-watching is one of the worst substitutions for working there is. But the Internet is as bad, and I am finding already that the temptation to sit and websurf is as strong – and probably as bad – as mindless TV-watching. I do have a lot to accomplish in the immediate moment, such as de-cluttering, preparing finances, and all the things that go with transitioning from a life of work to one of retired independence. It’s getting the motivation to do these things that I find difficult. As I’ve mentioned before, my life up to this point has been motivated largely by external forces, and primarily by the need to earn a salary properly paid using a check stub creator software. Adjusting from that will take some effort and, it seems to me, the establishment of some new routines. Substituting writing (active) for reading (passive) may be a good place to start. -twl

Dunkirk NY – After all these years of thinking about it and anticipating its arrival, it has finally arrived. As of last Sunday, April 9, 2017, I have completed all the obligations I had left at work. My final show was struck on Sunday, and I had a cast party for the students afterwards. I’ve no further official obligations. While not officially “separated from service”, I am retired. Nothing left to do.

It feels both good and disorienting at the same time. There is a certain suddenness to it all that is disconcerting in some ways. I check my inbox, and while it contains a few emails, none really require any immediate response. Over this past week I went to New York to check on my old college roommate and see how his health is doing, staying on Long Island with my brother, who owns the house we both grew up in. This morning is very pleasant, with a morning temperature of 71°. It’s Easter Sunday, the day of resurrection and new life. I’ve refilled the bird feeder. I do get a sense of starting something new. The thing is, I don’t know what.

I have decided simply to learn to live with that for awhile. Naturally I always get the question, “What are you going to do in retirement?” The answer is I don’t know, but I do know that I am going to take a “gap year” to figure it out and learn to let retirement become my way of life. I also refer to the coming year as my “decompression” year, a time to let the daily pressures of the working world slough off and fade away. I feel that before I can really determine what I might do in retirement, I first have to let my working self go completely. I am giving myself about a year to get that done.

Travel will help, I believe. I currently have four different trips lined up. The first occurs next week, when I head to Puerto Rico to be with my parents for part of their annual vacation. Their anniversary is coming up, and they have been going to PR for maybe the past 10 years. For the first time I can join them! It’ll be a great way to spend a pleasant time with them.

Then over May and June I have a “decompression excursion” planned. I guess you could call it a walkabout. I’m getting in my car and plan to drive to the Florida Keys, which is the only destination I have in mind. Once I see the Keys, I plan to simply drive each day and see where I land up at the end of the day. I love driving, and I’ve planned this to be a couple of months that will give me a sense of freedom. No obligations other than to discover the next place I’m going to be sleeping.

In August I have a quick trip planned with the wife (who will also be retired by then) to see the coming solar eclipse in Grand Island, NE. Why Grand Island? It was the first place I came to that wasn’t raising its rates 300% to spend a few nights there. I was astonished in January to find how hard it was to secure a place to spend a few nights to see the eclipse. Campgrounds, RV parks, motels were all booked. So when I came upon the Grand Island location, which is smack dab in the middle of the eclipse’s path, I grabbed it. I’d better pay attention to lodging on the way back as well.

And then the fall trip in the RV with the wife. We have no definite travel plans as of yet, but I think we are going to criss-cross the eastern half of the country and follow the changing leaves in the fall down to the south. After that, we are thinking of spending the winter in a warm place and exploring the possibility of snowbirding. By this time next year, we should be back home and settled. And that’s as far as I’ve gotten.

And you know, I’m OK with all this. Every time I try and think of what I am actually going to do in retirement, nothing pops up. Yes, I have ideas, but frankly, none of them feel so compelling to me that I have to start them now. Many of them are probably far-fetched. But I will take a year to figure all this out.

My favorite aspect of every show is the strike. It’s the day when the show’s set is destroyed, the lights are stripped, the costumes are either put in storage or sent for cleaning, the stage floor is painted black, and the theatre is returned to neutral. The neutralness of an empty theatre is very exhilarating, as it represents infinite possibility. In an empty theatre, anything is possible. I’ll be spending the next year striking my life, and returning to neutral. Anything is possible.  -twl

Dunkirk NY – I ventured out last night – under obligation, I might add – to see a production of Tony Kushner’s The Illusion, a free adaptation of Pierre Corneille’s L’Illusion Comique. On the whole it was a bland production of a play that probably only a certain subsection of theatre people and academics would like. Either a college or a theatre doing a retrospective on Tony Kushner’s work (Signature Theatre 2011) is the only likely venue to produce this piece.

These days, when I have to go to the theatre, I am as much, and sometimes more, interested in the audience as I am in the play. The reason is because I think observing how audiences react to the theatrical event is an indication of how far the theatre has sunk in the estimation of the general public. This audience was particularly interesting, because it was made up of a mix of people 98% of whom I imagine were there, like me, under some obligation.

About 1/3 of the audience consisted of theatre students. Many were from the cast of Pirates of Penzance that I am directing because they had the night off. They were there because, as theatre students, they are under the obligation to see the show for many reasons. They want to support their friends; they can’t really engage socially in the department without having seen the show; they probably feel required to see the show; they may in fact be required to see the show for another class. It is very probable, of course, that if they did not feel these obligations, they would not choose to see this show. I’ve no hard figures, but over the course of 6 performances I would wager a month’s salary that less than 5 students without any connection to the theatre department or its inhabitants on the whole campus went to see the show by choice.

Theatre students always make for bad audiences, and this one was no exception. They reacted not primarily to the story or the quality of the performances, but rather because they felt the need to be supportive. And so they laughed at the appropriate times – perhaps a bit too loudly – and at the end led the requisite standing ovation. They applauded one of their friends after she gave a performance that was long on gags for which she is well-known, and short on depth.

The rest of the audience was composed of people under various other obligations. Some were family members, some were friends/colleagues of the director, some were members of what passes for the cultural mavens of the community. They did not seem to enjoy the play in the way the students did. Few laughed; many seemed bored; many seemed confused, perhaps because they were not privy to the inside nature of the theatre jokes or the social relationships between the student actors and student audiences. It led to a very strange attitudinal split in the audience, one which I am sure was either lost on everybody, or, perhaps more true, subconsciously acknowledged but consciously suppressed.

It is ironic that, in the midst of watching a play entitled The Illusion, I became more disillusioned. The interesting thing about that is that it was not the production that caused the disillusionment, but rather the actual theatrical event as such. The whole enterprise was, in the end, meaningless. The agenda of the community assembled was nothing like what one imagines a theatre assembly to be about. No one there was interested in furthering her or his knowledge of the human condition. The actors did not seem to feel under any obligation to help me understand life’s meaning – or meaninglessness. The audience all had better things to do, but were all obliged to be there, and so that weight of obligation hung in the air like lead.

I wonder if, once I finish my final obligations to the department, I will ever walk into a theatre again.  -twl

Dunkirk NY – I have been directing my last show over the past three weeks, and I have also taken up two classes to fill in for a colleague who needed surgery. Both of these are obligations, things I have to get done each day. Although they are minimal, they are obligations nonetheless, and I find that, while they are not particularly onerous, I would prefer not to have them. If there is one goal I have for my new life in retirement, it is to have a life free of as many obligations as possible.

I think this is why I am hesitant to retire to something, as is often advised. I would like to enjoy some period of time where I am obligated to nothing at all, where every day is as open to any possibilities as I care to think about. Days where I have absolutely nowhere to go and nothing to do for anyone else besides myself. That is the current ideal I am shooting for.

Few people manage to live completely obligation-free lives, and I do not expect to achieve one myself. There is always family, for example. But in taking up the two activities mentioned above, I am realizing how much I really would rather not have them. I get home from rehearsal and find myself internally grumbling at having spent another evening in a dark rehearsal room hammering out another production whose eventual end and purpose is not particularly meaningful to me, but whose end and purpose is meaningful to others. I have found going back to the classroom not too inspiring, because it’s mostly the same old things I have been talking about for many years; and again, for me there appears to be no purpose, but for the students there is some purpose (although in reality the purpose for them is really quite short-term). Had it not been for the fact that I am helping out a colleague, I would not have taken the classes of my own accord. I do not see in the future any reason why I should ever step into a teaching situation again.

Teaching brought to me a career where others needed me, and becoming an administrator did the same thing for colleagues. As I was building my career, that was OK. I think 30 years ago I very much wanted to be needed. But over time that burden became harder and harder to bear, particularly as I began to view my chosen profession as, on the whole, one that carried little meaning in the current cultural climate. Wanting to be needed about something so socially superfluous as theatre and acting (at least in the early 21st century) became, to me, less and less tolerable.

Right now, my vision of a perfect retirement is to get to a point where I am superfluous, and nobody needs me for anything. That way, I will never have to be in a position to tell someone, “Sorry, but no.” They will eventually forget about me because they don’t need me anymore. In this semi-retired state that has not been true, and of late too many situations have come up where I have been “needed” for one reason or another. But with some luck, by mid-April I hope to enter that phase of life where people will move on from me, so I can move on from them.

Recently I took a trip to New York City to see a former student who had suffered a stroke, and I had some time to kill, so I went to Jones Beach for a walk and some time for thought. Here are some pictures I took while wandering the beach.

Cassadaga, NY – Today is my 65th birthday. The ultimate significance of this day is that, no matter where I go now, I qualify for senior citizen pricing anywhere. Although it was a month early, I bought my first senior citizen fare for the Long Island Railroad last January when I returned from England. Now it would be perfectly legal. Their SC rate starts at 65, and as far as I know it was the last service I knew of where I didn’t qualify for SC rates. No longer.

The wife decided to stay home from work today, and last week we had our friendly carpenter come in to do some painting and ceiling patching. He came today as well, so the house was too busy for me to enjoy myself or get any peace and quiet. So I took off. It’s snowing a little bit, but nothing that would stop a little bit of driving.

I had breakfast at Jenna’s 4th St. Cafe, a wonderful little restaurant that caters to the local crowd in Dunkirk. Their country scrambler is a terrific mix of eggs, bacon, peppers, onions, and cheese, accompanied by home fries and raisin toast. The clientele is mostly retired men. The talk is local: the weather, whatever happens to be in the newspaper in the morning, bowling, health, and did I mention the weather? It’s really better than hanging out at a fancy coffee shop, but they don’t have wifi. I could bring my phone in and use it as a hot spot to get work done. I’m far more comfortable around these people on the whole than I am around academic types, but of course I don’t really fit in. Their world is far different than mine, to be sure, but I love eavesdropping. Often I envy them; their lives seem so simple and uncluttered by any higher thoughts than beyond how they will get to the next day. I’m probably romanticizing that, but who knows for sure? Breakfast at Jenna’s is always a treat.

At the moment I happen to be on my land where I have a little run-down cabin of sorts. It’s functional but not very attractive on the whole. Today it’s a good place to escape and write. There is a beauty to winter here that I cannot get in my house. I can see the trees and the snow and the fields, and somehow all that space emptiness brings a calm over me that being at home does not. A propane heater cuts the chill down a bit to where I can write without having to wear gloves. The mice get in during the wintertime but I set poison out as I can to keep some control over the situation. There happens to be a cell tower at the end of the road, so cell service is excellent. I’ve always wanted to live out in the country, and here I get my chance to do so.

I have been a bit melancholy in these first few weeks of retirement. I find that going to rehearsal is something of a chore. Without teaching classes and doing all the administrative work I used to do during the day, the evenings in rehearsal don’t seem quite as interesting. Having to actually leave the house in the winter cold and dark is also unappealing. I chalk it all up to an adjustment period. My metaphor for this whole situation is that I feel I am walking around with one leg in and one leg out of my pants, and I can’t remember if I am supposed to take my pants off or put them on. I suppose at some point I will snap out of it, but I suspect that won’t really happen until the summertime, or at least until after the show closes.

I am also feeling more restless than usual. I want to travel pretty badly, and find myself surfing the net thinking about all the different ways I can get away and the different places I want to be. Were it completely up to me I would probably embark on some sort of extended traveling scenario, moving around until I had seen all I wanted to see and had gotten all this wanderlust out of my body. I’m not sure I can settle in very well until I purge myself of all this wanderlust, or at least a good part of it. I do have three trips coming up: the World Baseball Classic trip with my son in March; Puerto Rico with my parents in April; and the Solar Eclipse trip in August with the wife. A major fall trip is also in the elementary thinking stages. So I will be getting in some excursions soon, and I am looking forward to them.

I think the interesting thing here is that I find myself thinking about the future and what lies ahead because at the moment I have no present. I feel very much between things; not quite retired but not really working; not wanting to be home but not going anywhere; not feeling particularly old but not feeling exactly young; sensing that 10 years is a long time vrs. a short time. I want to embrace having no plans while at the same time planning what’s next.

Time is the biggest mystery of all. How did 65 years actually go by? What will the next 10 bring? The next 20? Do I have 20 years to go? What do I have to prepare for, and what can I just let come to me as it will? One thing is certain – there is no senior citizen discount for time. You get so much of it, and that’s it. While I am not too certain that the best is yet to come, neither am I denying that there are some good times left. Make some plans, but adjust to the curveballs of life.

Pitchers and catchers report tomorrow for most MLB teams. That’s always the best sign of the approaching spring.  -twl

Update – Photos from the rest of the day can be found here.