Month: February 2017

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.

Dunkirk NY – I’ve been thinking lately about the notion of loss. As I survey the retirement horizon ahead, the idea that, on the whole, there is nothing left but the gradual experience of loss is becoming evident. I think that’s perhaps the hardest thing with which one has to come to grips as a person gets older.

Oddly enough, I have in my life up to now been spared a great deal of loss. Both my parents are alive and nearing 88, which is an achievement in itself. But naturally their loss is clearly on the 10-year-or-less horizon. I’ve been unemployed for only maybe 4 months out of my entire working career, so I’ve never lost a job. Retirement has meant that particular loss. On the whole, life moves forward for me as it always has. But there are some adjustments to be made.

Perhaps this sense of loss feels strong in me because I have no particular ambitions or goals at the present time. I feel no desire to achieve anything, no sense of needing to accomplish anything. My strongest urge is the one to travel. I’ve read many times that spending your money on experiences is better than spending it on stuff, but when you get right down to it, even memories fade, and one loses the exactness of those experiences.

Can loss be embraced? Is it possible to weave a life around loss, to find a way to experience loss as something joyful? Perhaps the answer lies in looking at ruins.

There is always a haunting beauty in ruins. You can see the beauty that once was there, and yet still the sense of loss prevails at what once was. There is always a grace to ruins, and a sense that, if left alone, time will give to the ruins its own sense of beauty and mystery.

It is easy to see this quality in buildings and structures, but less so in people.  As a culture, we don’t tend to see old people in the same way we see old buildings or ancient forests. Perhaps the trick is not to grow old, but instead, to become a ruin.

Dunkirk NY – February begins. We are at midwinter. The US has a new president. It looks like winter will be lasting for some time.

I have been at something of a loss as to how to respond to the change in US administration. As a voter, I felt my hands were tied, as both candidates were decidedly unappealing. Donald Trump is, without question, an ignorant, crass, incompetent blowhard pretty much unfit both in temperament and intellect to serve as President. Hillary Clinton espouses a brand of elitist liberalism to which I cannot adhere. While either candidate as president posed problems, given the election of Mr. Trump it’s perfectly clear that he has done more damage than probably Ms. Clinton would have done in the same space of time.

Winter is a harsh, cruel season. The days are short, sunlight is in short supply, skies are grey, and the air is of a temperature that one is forced to hold all that is dear close and tight. One finds warmth and shelter where one can. Venturing out for extended periods of time is accomplished only with great care and preparation. It’s not a season for impulsively stepping out.

This political winter will last for some time. There is little light to be had, as both sides of the political spectrum spew much emotional heat but little light. The lake of state has fissures and fractures across its frozen-over surface. I get a distinct feeling each time I read the news that I am standing on the middle of a frozen lake, with cracks everywhere, not knowing which is the safest direction to turn, or if there is enough solid ice left to get me to shore.

Mr. Trump is, in my view, the unintended harvest of what has been sown by well-meaning but out-of-touch individuals. When the Democratic party, mostly in the form of Bill Clinton, began the process of cozying up to big business and launching the nation on the path of globalization, it’s pretty clear that what they did not realize was how badly the middle-class and working poor were going to get screwed. They failed to realize that many, many people need to work with their hands and their bodies. They failed to realize that a mix of traditional industrial jobs had to be included in the rush to build the service and financial economy. They presumed, wrongly, that there would be opportunity for everyone in the global economy. Why they believed this I do not know. I presume they believed that institutions such as education and job training would keep up. They did not.

Autumn is, as always, a trap. The leaves display a glorious multitude of colors, and the display of all these colors, combined with the still-warm air and the remaining light, lulls one into a false sense of security. One believes that all is right with nature because the displays evoke such feelings of wonder and amazement. In autumn, you feel as if the world holds immense possibility and promise. But it is a false hope, whisked away with the first winter winds that strip the trees naked. Autumn is nothing more than a harbinger of winter.

Obama was America’s autumn. Trump will prove to be America’s winter. We have just begun; spring is a long way away. It will be interesting to see how much spring cleaning will need to be done when this winter is over.