The Time That I Thought Would Last

Me and The Crow at our 50th/60th Birthday party--Over my left shoulder.

Everybody says, "time flies", but I think time disappears. Time has been on my mind, because it doesn't seem there is a day, a week, a month, a year, a life long enough to do everything that I want to do, now that I am retired. Maybe retirement should happen lots earlier--maybe work could be less than 8 hours, maybe the Pope isn't Catholic and bears don't crap in the woods. Paul McCartney has a song on Memory Almost Full with the lyrics: "I've got too much on my plate, don't have time to be a decent lover, I hope it isn't too late, searching for the time that has gone so fast, the time that I thought would last, my ever present past". You don't have to be Paul McCartney to feel that way. Yesterday I was listing, writing in my head, a blog about passions and trying to figure out how to include them all, when there is a finite time in each day, or week, etc.. How? This morning I imagined asking my dear old friend, Jim, about this. He is gone now--I can't really ask him, but I imagined it.

"Jim, how can I figure out where to start? You've had a great retirement. How did you do it? I love doing so many things but I can't do them all and I need to try to fit them all in somehow. Any advice?"

Jim said: "Why are you worrying about it? That's a waste of time. You can't do it all at once anyway. Just do whatever is the most important thing to do right now." He would have said it in a witty way. He would have made me laugh and see how silly I was being. He could do that easily, put things in perspective. And right now, from that place he is, whether it's in that bag that Bookworm keeps so close to her or some place none of us will know about until we die, he would say, "Hey, it could be worse--you could be dead!" He really would say that.

So I looked at how Jim led his life, because I don't think he had any angst about all the things he wanted to do and the time he had to do them in. I could be wrong, but the way he seemed to do it was by doing one thing at a time. He loved digging for bones and became a highly respected amateur paleantologist, digging in Eastern Washington in the summer, discovering new bones, cataloging and writing about his findings, publishing in paleontology journals. He wanted to learn how to bind books, and so he did. He made beautiful little books that he covered with splendid illustrations he found in books and magazines--he filled them with special paper and gave them to friends--they were of excellent quality. He decided to learn to make pottery and he threw himself into it and once again produced excellent results. He wanted to take photographs. He became a brilliant photographer and enlarged and framed some of his work. Two examples hang on my walls. He began a blog after I encouraged him to do so and it turned into one of the most interesting blogs I have ever read. He was interested in geneology. Do you even have to ask whether he got good results? And then he had grandchildren. That might have been his most important avocation. And he went at it just as he had with all the other passions he had. He was the best, most excellent grandfather there was; ask his granddaughters and his grandson, they'll tell you. As it turned out, he died at the age of 74, much younger than he or any of us thought he would.

Is that why I am in such a panic to try to figure out my priorities? 74 is only 10 years away. Sure, I might live into my 90s, but I might not, and if I do, who knows who many brain cells I'll have left. This will have to be my mantra then--one thing at a time. Do it well. Dive in. Don't delay. Take it seriously, but don't stress over it. Don't imagine fame and fortune ahead, just do it because you love it. Do it now.

Does that answer your question, Roi? The question about what more we can accomplish after we've been a wife/husband and a mother/dad and ridden out that career/job? For me, it is all about my passions and how I will conduct myself from here on out. I wish I didn't have so many passions, but there you are. I made a list yesterday and there were 10 items/passions on it! Ack!!! All I can do is pick one or two and GO! I guess at 64 I'm not really concerned about making a mark, or accomplishing something Big. It will be enough to do it well.

I will probably consult my Guru, Jim, dead or alive, to see if I am on the right path. Our circle of friends all read the Carlos Castenada books way back when and Jim also talked about the symbolism of crows which sort of became the symbol of Jim and so I can picture Jim over my left shoulder like the fellow in Castenada's books pictured death, squawking at me if I am not diving in or taking what I am doing seriously, but not taking myself too seriously, or if I am having too much angst. He won't let me BS myself as he never BSed himself or anybody in his vicinity. And he never took himself too seriously, either. Crow on, Cowboy.

That's what I am thinking today. That's where retirement has me at the moment, almost a year later. Still trying to figure out what to do next. Squawk!!!!