"The only thing for us to decide is what to do with the time we are given” - Gandalf in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings"

Today, I am enjoying a vacation with Sue and two of our closest friends so I wrote these reflections late last week. As I looked forward to our time together, I found myself thinking about what I hope to do in retirement. It will be more than a year yet before I get to act on these hopes, but it is not too soon to begin thinking about how to make the best use of these new years.

This list is in no particular order, except for this first item. Most important of all to me is to have more time with my loved ones. When I ask the most important question, “Am I doing what matters most?”, I know that when I am loving, I can be sure that I am. Oh, how I will delight in more time with Sue, and with my beloved friends and family. Each of these special ones fills my heart and my life with joy, peace, and love. I want to spend as much time sharing that with, and giving it back to, them. I think of time with our great-nieces and nephews and I am filled with happiness. It would be lovely to be a grandparent! I also realize that many of the other things I hope to do below are sweeter when done with and for these loved ones of mine.

I look forward to more time to be quiet, listen to my heart and soul, and think about what I am feeling. learning and experiencing. Most of these last forty years of college and professional life have been very busy ones and time to be quiet, and even alone, has been a very infrequent part of my life. I wonder what I will notice and realize when I have time to slow down, be quiet, and reflect with an open mind and an open heart. I know that I will enjoy including more meditation and healthy activities like tai chi in some of this quiet time.

I am very much looking forward to more time for music! This has been a joyful part of my life from the very beginning and some of my earliest memories are of music and song. I am grateful that music has been some part of my life always and I will give more time and energy to it in retirement. I’ll enjoy the joyful social collaboration of performing and singing with others, the lovely feeling of sharing music with my loved ones, and the more solitary creative process of writing music, practicing, and learning to play new music and instruments.

I will take more time for writing and look forward to setting up a little office in one corner of our guest bedroom for this purpose. I also hope to do some of my writing in my “office” in a clearing up the mountain. There is a great fallen log up there that makes an excellent bench. I’ve got notes for a few more significant essays and some ideas for fiction and poetry. I’ve always loved playing with words to find the ones that best express my meaning and it will be enjoyable to do more of this.

I look forward to having more time for woodworking and art. I have a lathe and have yet to teach myself to use it! There are many other tools I am more comfortable with and a long list of projects I’d enjoy making. I love the smell and the feel of wood and the joy of sharing what I’ve made with others. I can draw and paint a bit and look forward to practicing these arts and learning to make pictures that look more like what I intend. It would be wonderful to reach the point where I could draw and paint the faces of my loved ones in a way that helps me show the beauty I see inside them.

I will definitely have great fun doing more cooking, baking and brewing! I’ve enjoyed making food and drinks since I was a little boy working with my mother in the kitchen and I’ll be glad to do more of this. There’s something very satisfying about sharing fresh-baked bread or a favorite meal made with my loved ones’ tastes in mind. I look forward to trying some new recipes, too!

I will be looking at ways that I can spend some time giving back to my community and making a difference in retirement. There are many opportunities to choose from and some that sound interesting to me today include volunteering in our national parks, working on achieving real equity and equality for girls and women, helping people learn to read, and finding more ways to help children get involved with music.

Without a doubt, we’ll be doing more traveling together in retirement and we already have a list of places we’d like to visit that would probably be enough for another lifetime! That list keeps growing and then there are the wonderful places we’ve been that we’d like to see again. I look forward to the luxury of trips that take longer than my working life has allowed and one of these will definitely be a long road trip across the US and into Canada that will allow us to share family history and time with friends.

I will enjoy spending more time close to nature and in wilderness in retirement. I hope for some great hikes and quiet times sitting by beautiful rivers, and time to fill my soul with the peace and power of the sea. I look forward to loon calls over the lake, swimming together in the sun-warmed water, and laughing and singing around the fire before laying on our backs looking up at the bright stars filling clear, dark skies.

I will be seeking some good advice by talking with friends and loved ones who have started down this retirement road before me. I know I’ll have lots to learn and adjustments to make as I discover for myself the difference between my idea of being retired and the reality. I’ll try to ask some good questions and do lots of listening.

I hope retirement will bring me time to discover more fully who I am today, who I have become as a result of my life’s experiences and who I have always been and always will be. May I share with my loved ones a long retirement with lots of long drives, long walks, long talks, eating, drinking, singing, laughing, and sitting quietly together. May I find the right ways to show how much they mean to me and how deeply I love them.