Retirement: Month Four

Last sunset of 2010, Texas Hill Country.

December--four months, one-third of a year into retirement and I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up. Beginning to wonder if I'll ever grow up.

Slow but steady progress towards making sense of things. And the Best. Christmas. Present. Ever. My daughter surprised me with a visit and the news that she will relocate in Austin within the next year.

That's huge. For the last fifteen years we have been separated by so many miles and so little money to visit I despaired we'd ever see each other again. To keep hope alive, I'd look forward to the next time we could be together. I've never insisted on adhering to traditional holidays, especially since she felt the need (and I concurred) that those special times were more important for her to be with her dad and his new family than with me. I can make a holiday out of any day of the year. Her presence is what makes it special for me.

To be sure, I have my own family to celebrate those occasions with, and that's been wonderful. It's just more wonderfuller now.

Reconnection: 2010 was full of surprise calls and e-mails from old friends who found me via Facebook, Twitter, the Showco listserv, and plain old Google. One friend UPS'ed me an antique Blue Willow mug that she had been carrying around for 35 years to return to me. Green (the band) reunions at James Neel House of Music were great fun, interesting to see where dynamics have changed, where they haven't.

Trying to reconnect with myself. Dealing with depression in a new way (shit happens--you won't be stuck forever) and peeling back resistance to commitment. Learning how to care for an aging body. Accepting good things as well as bad.

New Year's Investigations (as opposed to New Year's Resolutions): The word "resolutions" has several connotations. I associate NYRs with grim determination, mindless exercises in habituation, failure, and general dissatisfaction. For 2011 I am looking deeper. Redefining "resolution" to mean "problem solving," "arrival," "completion." Bringing curiosity into the mix. Jumping off cliffs. Cracking facades. Opening doors.


1. Music: spring concert season begins soon! AVAE is doing a piece (Poulenc Figure Humaine 1943) that I've wanted to perform for a very long time with a group that has the talent to execute. Thanks, Ryan!

Knocking the rust off the old flute chops. Wonder of wonders, one of the few things that was pre-organized before the move. All my flute music is safely stored in a clear bin, so was easily retrieved from the unlabelled boxes. There are a few items I keep close: my flute, passport, and a palm-sized turquoise bear fetish. Piano as well, all in a bin.

2. De-clutter: The unprepared move knocked me for a loop. I miss my old tree house, but my new place is definitely more conducive to fashioning a physical environment that is safe, healthy, and wildly creative. Several sub-categories: prioritizing what needs to go, what can stay; acquiring items that will enhance the above (computer chair, clothes dryer, slide/neg converter). Photographing items that I might sell on Ebay or Etsy. Accepting that I will probably NEVER mend clothing, replace buttons, etc. Aggressively dealing the unaccustomed onslaught of paper mail triggered by retirement (enough, already!)


3. 52 Weeks to Awesome: This is one of those serendipity things that showed up at the right place, time, and price. Already reaping the benefits from the bonus goodies alone--a lovely, hand-drawn watercolor Goddess calendar to brighten up the workshop wall as well as keeping me on track. Homies Pace and Kyeli from the Connection Revolution don't know me yet, but I'm looking to blow their collective minds and find myself in the process. Or vice versa. Scrumptious, either way. Evolution.


4. Rehab: Next purchase? A pair of supportive walking shoes. Austin has two awesome feet stores--Caravel and Run-Tex. I'll be searching for the ones that make walking more enjoyable. Especially now that it's as cold as it's going to get for the year--can't walk outside in hot weather, too many unhealthy heat/UV reactions. Psyche--look for ways to share PTSD recovery with those still inside the horror.

5. Simplify, simplify, simplify: Simply, make room for wonderments, good deeds, insane creativity.

6. Milestone birthday: The ol' Six-Five. Or as I like to say, "eighteen with forty-seven years of experience." Because that's what it feels like. Really.

What's your fiscal responsibility scheme?

Normally, I'm not the best person to ask about finances. I dislike numbers, and do much better with words and intuition. My excuse is that I learned to read when I was 3 years old, and skipped the first grade, thereby missing out on the basics of arithmetic. Not that I did badly in math--I usually made A's, until I stretched a little too far my senior year in high school and took solid geometry. Made my very first C in that class. I was devastated.

Numbers affected my musicianship until I learned the technique of breaking the rhythm down to the smallest note value and setting that beat up in my head. This was especially helpful when studying Bach. Subdividing the beat allows you to navigate his sixteenth-note-rich, long, sinuous melodic/rhythmic schemes successfully. That technique, plus a "cheat-sheet" of Baroque ornamentation led to many hours of exploring the six Bach flute sonatas--arguably the pinnacle of the flute repertory.

I was also sadly lacking in knowledge of finance. My dad was a minister dedicated to serving poor rural communities, which necessarily dictated an extremely modest salary. I made up a joke about this, telling friends that we were always poorer than the proverbial church mouse. While this had some truth, we also had alternative resources. We always had a vegetable garden, and frequently chickens or part shares in a pig or steer. We put up a lot of food, and dad supplemented by hunting whatever was in season. It was as much a sport for him as food on the table, but I learned many valuable skills--how to field dress deer, clean and fillet fish, dig buckshot out of quail, and prepare such oddities as frog legs and rabbit.

Unfortunately, the only thing I learned about finances was how to alternate monthly bill-paying, keeping our balances due to 60 days rather than 30. Most dry goods establishments would generously allow the local ministry the option of layaway or payment over time (no credit cards back then), which meant that we could have at least one pair of school shoes and one pair of Sunday shoes that fit. I did learn the honorable practice of barter, which I engage in to this day.

Both sets of grandparents were adept at making a living from the land. My maternal grandparents always had a huge garden and put up all kinds of food. Mamaw was also an expert seamstress. We would draw pictures of outfits, and she had the uncanny ability to find patterns and materials and reproduce whatever our imaginations could dream up. We regularly received boxes of dresses, pajamas, skirts and blouses, always with a small box of Papaw's fudge, made with pecans from the tree in their backyard they planted when I was born. Along with hand-me-downs from the church, this was our entire wardrobe. I got my first store-bought dress when I was 11.

Paternal grandparents were farmers, as was my dad before he was called to the ministry. It was a hard, sometimes cruel life. Cotton, before the boll weevil wiped them out. Turkeys, beef cattle, even a stint as a butcher when the topsoil was gone, blown away in the 50's on the southernmost fringes of the Dust Bowl. My grandmother was blind, which didn't stop her from her farmwife chores. She cooked, did laundry, fed the chickens, gathered eggs, all by touch. Should I ever lose my sight, I know I can make my way in the dark, at least in familiar territory.

What we lacked in coin, we made up for in education, literature, intellectual discovery. self-reliance, the arts, and family. We were rich in imagination and resourcefulness. I have come to believe that these experiences were worth much more than mere money, and serve me well in the present economy. After all, I've had lots of practice. This is not to say that everything is hunky-dory. The world has changed. But this background gave me a modicum of self-confidence that keeps fear to a minimum.

In a nutshell, my fiscal sheme is simply to live as simply as possible, while maximizing resources. Nothing earth-shattering, but that just might be all I need.