Uncategorized

Chrystelle

Posted on

Had supper Thursday with Chrystelle and baby James. You’ll remember Chrystelle as the young lady from Cameroon who lost her husband last June in a terrible swimming pool accident. After a long trip to her native land to bury her husband and receive comfort from her family, she is back in Amarillo to continue chasing […]

Uncategorized

Not a Good Week

Posted on

This has not been a good week. A friend lost his wife after a protracted battle with cancer; another lost her son in an unexpected tragedy. Some romanticize death, putting the best face they can on it, looking for meaning in what seems so meaningless. I don’t. Death is a tragedy. Always—at 8 or 88. […]

Uncategorized

Leisure: Fun Is What It Is

Posted on

According to Geoff Godbey, a sociology professor at Pennsylvania State University, “At the end of your life, what you’ve done with your leisure may be more important than what you’ve done at work.” To that end, researchers have written entire books on the subject (Stella Rheingold’s “101 Fun Things To Do in Retirement”); others (Dorothy […]

Uncategorized

The Leisure Fallacy

Posted on

Current research strongly condemns equating retirement with leisure. Marika and Howard Stone say that since many of us can expect to live another 20 or 30 healthy years, we are “Too Young to Retire” (the name of their bestselling book): Mary Catherine Bateson (“Composing a Further Life”) is more blunt: Extended lifespans contain “far too […]

Uncategorized

A Place for Leisure

Posted on

Just got back from a couple of days in Santa Fe and am thinking about leisure, which I guess describes what one does in Santa Fe. Seems that a change of location is sometimes necessary. Maybe because the workplace (right now that would be my office) reminds me of, well, work. Which is why, during […]

Uncategorized

Who Am I?

Posted on

“Am I still the person I have spent a lifetime becoming, and do I still want to be that person?” asks Mary Catherine Bateson in “Composing a Further Life.” Bateson says that identity crises are not only for teens but are “revisited in every stage of life.” That’s why she recommends reflecting on one’s past […]

Uncategorized

The Neutral Zone

Posted on

The “neutral zone,” according to transition expert William Bridges, is where I’ve been living for the last 229 days. It’s the period between an ending (my days as AC) and a beginning (the new dream, as yet not clearly defined). Bridges says the neutral zone is the “most tortured” and “treacherous” part of retirement. He […]

Uncategorized

Retirement Is a Beginning

Posted on

So I’m over 200 days in and it turns out retirement is not a destination but a transition. Which, according to William Bridges (“Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes”), means it contains not only an ending but a beginning. In fact, the former is necessary for the latter. “It is, after all, the ending that […]

Uncategorized

Joy Sustained Us

Posted on

It’s the best decision I’ve ever made. Building a home on this little tributary canyon of the Palo Duro. Because building a house, like going back to school or starting an encore career, is a vote for the future. Everything you do (from foundation work to framing to trim carpentry) anticipates a better tomorrow. So […]