How to Live Life Before Retirement

Twenty-five years ago, after burgers and beers with an older couple, I was thanked for a pleasant night out instead of another organ recital. At their age dinners with friends always included a detailed description of their in-tune and out-of-tune organs. They said it was a pleasant change to talk about my future instead of their pasts.   

Although my current dinner conversations with peers aren't full-fledged recitals, I'll admit I'm starting to feel like a member of the warm-up band. What was once considering career paths is now reviewing retirement plans. Seeing that I never really had a path and still don't have a plan I usually just wait for the subject to change. ‎While they calculate their years left to work, I contemplate my years left to live.  

Just before Christmas I stopped by an old friend's office to deliver her card and heard that she'd retired a few days earlier. The plaque on the door still had her name so I took a photo and sent a message of congratulations. Later that evening on my way through the piazza to meet a student for coffee and conversation (aka work) I got a voicemail from the recent retiree. 

She said, "I have no more desire to push papers around a desk.... for me that's 'stupid' (my kinder, gentler translation). I have no desire to sit behind a computer or answer the telephone. Really, for me, I want to live my life, provided God gives me good health. Live my life? You might ask how I'm going to live my life. I'll live well just staying home looking out at the fields behind my house and enjoying the sunshine, taking a walk and doing any silly thing there is to do. For example, crocheting, knitting, going out to find a friend that I haven't seen for awhile just to drink coffee and talk. For me this is life and freedom. And then, also to travel a bit. This for me is living. I've had enough work. Enough. Now I'm really happy." 

Her message was an unexpected gift. It seemed like she'd taken a page from my book (a book I call How to Live Life Before Retirement). The excitement she felt about her new life to-be sounded just like the current life of me. I have to remember that my everyday life (albeit simple) is what many dream of for retirement. 

I don't know how to crochet (yet), but I've got the rest of her list down to a T.  Fortunately I don't have to wait for my last day of work (aka coffee and conversation in the piazza) to say, "Now I'm really happy."

 

It's Time to Start Answering (Part Two)

The reason I'm finally getting to Part Two of this post is not because I've been too busy being like Ester (see Part One), but because I'm finding it hard to describe the (mental) health benefits of 4 days in Rome in August. For Americans it sounds like a Roman Holiday....the Trevi Fountain, red Vespas and gelato. For Italians it sounds like Dante's Inferno.   

My hot trip to Rome consisted of reconnecting with Chicago friends for one day, reuniting with myself for three and refilling my water bottle for four. With 102-degree temps in well-ventilated  Villa Borghese, it seemed wise to avoid the unventilated buses and metro. Contrary to E.M. Forster's quote, "In Rome, one had simply to sit still and feel," I walked myself off the map in every direction and felt Rome like I'd never felt it before.

I was out every morning before things had opened and out every night 'til after they'd closed. I like closed shops. If I'm taken by something in a window I can 'just look' for as long as I wish never disturbing the shopkeeper by 'just looking'.

The last morning as I wove through the backstreets my thoughts wandered to life after August. Just as I was promising myself (again) that I'd really start creating in September, I was stopped by a colorful painting of a body that blended, dripped and took shape exactly how I dream of my watercolors blending, dripping and taking shape. Framed below the painting was this quote. "I do what I do so that when I'm on my death bed, I can look back & smile." -Gilbert Halaby.

At this point, the details are unclear. I think the door was open, but I'm not sure I went in. I can't remember if it was a shop or a workshop. There were other paintings framed 'as is', torn from the spiral pad and displayed with their frayed, untrimmed edges. I don't remember the art, but loved the imperfection of the presentation. And in this little scene that is perhaps more fiction than fact, a man I assume was Gilbert appeared and instead of "just looking" I said, "Che bello!" and timidly walked away. 

Fifty feet later I was struck by more colors, textures and shapes. There were paintings, handbags, books, plants and furniture. More than just looking, I was feeling. When I'd noticed that the shop was called Maison Halaby I turned towards the window I'd just admired. Gilbert was still by his door so I looked back and smiled.

On the train ride home instead of silently reveling in the magnificence of the city I'd just left behind, I googled the shop. In one article Gilbert said that he likes the people that enter to feel at home and not burdened by a forced commercial relationship. He said every guest becomes a friend and while he serves them tea, he tells them his story and they tell him theirs.

My Chicago readers may have made the connection. From inside my studio on a backstreet in Chicago I heard a lot of che bellos. It didn't matter if there were no purchases, the che bellos were payment enough. Some brave souls came in and over packets of Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate (with mini-marshmallows) we became running partners, lunch dates and secret keepers.    

Gilbert's words are with me every day. When I don't find the motivation to do what I think I want to be doing, it's his words that have started pushing me to paint, write, study and run.

Anatole Broyard said, "Rome was a poem pressed into service as a city." I say Gilbert Halaby is an artist pressed into service as an inspiration. Thanks to him I'm waking up before reaching my deathbed and getting closer to saying that I do what I do so I can look back and smile.