Retired!
Retired, after decades of petty interference in my real life by the demands of the false life of employment–free! Free at last to pursue, well, my personal demons, my own thoughts, such things as entertain an inquiring mind. No more sonnets secretly jotted down disjointed line by disjointed line in the margins of notes taken at interminable meetings. No more quick flipping of a page to conceal the stand-out effect of verse or dialog on a page. No more dissembling about my true calling. I am free as a bird to be a writer. Is that proper, do birds write freely? Well, there’s chicken-tracks.
Up at seven, not too late, not too early, sleep is important, and spend a profitable hour reading Italian in my favorite chair. Such was my plan, but somebody, and here I give a significant glance to my wife, somebody has moved all my Italian stuff. So I have a profitable half-hour to spend with a recent number of a respectable literary journal. But first there’s the wood stove to rake out and get started for the day. Who would have supposed the fuel oil would run out on New Year’s Day? Isn’t somebody supposed to be monitoring these things? In the garage I take a few moments to condense part of the long wood-pile onto the tall wood-pile and arrange the trash cans in the new space, so a body can get around. It’s important to have things organized, and finally getting my house, my affairs and my life in order is going to be one of the great benefits of retirement. In anticipation, I rub my hands over the crackling stove and set about getting a cup of coffee. I never take breakfast and rarely lunch, only when someone would invite me out at work. So this is a great opportunity to lose a number of unwanted pounds. And a cup for my wife’s mother, who lives with us – a coffee hound. Bending down to unload the dishwasher, I note that the place really needs vacuuming. Now that I have the time, I’ll take over that job. My wife is a great lady, but she is distracted with the daily grind of employment. I used to be like that. And she talks. So, a profitable quarter-hour with the respected literary journal and up to kiss the dear woman goodbye.
My wife’s mother does take breakfast, however, and I scramble her an egg, using my inimitable technique, which leaves almost no residue in the skillet. The way my wife scrambles an egg, stirring it constantly in the pan, leaves a mess stuck to the bottom, with which the unlucky soul who has to clean it must deal. In addition, Nana needs a banana sliced into thirty coins, a tumbler of juice, with which to take her morning pills, another cup of java and a beaker of water, because it is important to stay hydrated, especially at her age. My wife also suggested that the nasty pot rusting in the sink, left over from last night’s meal, was my responsibility. I can deal with it. I have a luxury of time. I’m retired. My mother-in-law complains, but I ask you, how can scrambled eggs be tough?
Nine o’clock was the fixed hour at which Isaac Asimov migrated to his typewriter and began to compose ninety words a minute. He said that was how fast he could type, so that was how fast he wrote. Myself, I can’t type that fast. We moved in different circles; I did not know Asimov; this is something I read. Ursula LeGuin holds that a place of your own in which to write is of signal importance. She achieved a room of her own only after years of publication. I have one of the children’s bed-rooms fixed up with a desk and word-processor, an electric heater, a little hot plate, a radio, some useful books, such as the dictionary, thesaurus, a handbook of poetic forms and Writer’s Market. The arrival of the new year makes this last volume three years old; is it out of date? Would it be judicious to invest in the current edition? Is it a tax write-off?
This morning I call up my venerable novel from the misty bowels of the computer. This is such good writing, I often marvel that I produced it. Good pages, good paragraphs, good images and good character. Well, one character is good, the protagonist, thank God, but the others are vague, and I know it. I have that insight. And the work is disorganized over-all. Like the mystery writer, Josephine Tey, I am better at description than plot. Doesn’t Writer’s Digest Books have a how-to volume on novel writing? I have a number, a really fine number of publishing credits to my name, but I’m not too proud to admit that this novel-writing is a challenge. Going on-line reminds me that I need to call the oil delivery people about something to heat the place with. That, in turn, reminds me to go re-fill the wood-stove. In the garage for wood, I sort through some of the things I’ve been waiting for my retirement to evaluate. After careful consideration, I conclude that the singleton rubber boot fails to justify it’s place in my life and in my garage. It is in very good condition for it’s age, which weighs heavily with me, but lacks for a peer. All things considered..., into the trash can. The very act of sitting down to call the oil man reminds me that there is are prescriptions to call in to the pharmacy for Nana. One of the prescriptions has no refills left, so I dial the physician’s office for a new prescription.
But back to writing. Maybe it is too big a bite to start with the novel. I could write a poem, have the thing nearly done, but for the subtle polishing, by day’s end. The amazing thing about my wife’s mother is that, while she weighs almost nothing, she does eat lunch, too. Time to get her a sandwich. Maybe there’s a poem in that. I can contemplate while I make us a sandwich.
Cleaning up the dishes suggests the need for a general clean up, so I vacuum. I have a luxury of time, and the place is a pig-pen. Thoreau wrote well on the nobility of work, as well as the need to be free of the demands of employment. A couple of years ago, we drove up to see the reproduction of his place on Walden Pond. Pushing the vacuum, it strikes me forcibly that his one-room shack must have taken very little maintenance. A short story of the day-in-the-life-of-famous-historical-figure sort is a possibility. I retire about two to the study to contemplate. Back out for a cup of coffee. It’s chilly, so I adjust the electric heater, and settle down to some careful thought. I never knew what that little icon on the screen did before. The hardest part is simply to get started. Hemingway said that all good writing was re-writing. Just get the fingers moving, produce any old thing at all, and the next day, you can re-work it. I start with a CD cover. Warmed up, I work on a table to schedule all the rooms in the house for regular vacuuming, so that the chore will not need to dominate any single day, and yet the place will stay clean. It’s amazing how well a table looks if you simply fuss with the borders. Just as I tape my handiwork to the inside of the kitchen cabinet, in which we keep our glasses, the sound of the outside door bursting open surprises me. My wife is home already, all smiles, hugs and kisses. And she wants to know what’s for dinner. I hate to mess up the kitchen again.