"Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun, like struggle.

To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is,

right here and now." - Fred Rogers

Today, I begin the last six months of my part-time work at Fresno State as a retired annuitant. I am very grateful for the opportunity the university, and my colleagues here, have given me to make the transition from my full-time career to full-time retirement just as I have hoped to. Having spent the last month away from work, I’ve had more time to practice being retired, and that has included more time to think. I’ve spent some of that time thinking about what is most important of all to me. Love, and my loved ones. Someday, I hope to publish a series of essays about how we experience, express, and act on our love, and how it connects us all. Today, I will share some more personal thoughts and feelings about love that I’ve been setting down to feed the process of writing those essays.

The words I share today are for my beloveds, and for each of them in their own way. For Sue, our sons, my sisters, my precious friends and family. All my dearest beloveds. Although those closest to me tease me lovingly about being “I love you, man”, and they are absolutely right to, I try to temper the way that I share my feelings. My emotions are powerful, and love by far the strongest of all, so I try always to hold something back. While I want to celebrate with every breath and heartbeat the love and joy my loved ones inspire in me, I remind myself to celebrate in silence much of the time.

For all my strong feelings, and the strong desire to share them in celebration of the joy and love they’ve brought to my life, I do try to measure my words and actions. I can be afraid of pushing my loved ones away, or offending any one of them in my effort to celebrate all they’ve given me. I’ve felt them pull back from me when I reveal the depth of my feelings too openly. Forgetting to whisper, or simply sit silently with, a joy that begs to be shouted out loud. I’ve felt their doubt when I share the beauty, kindness, and glorious strength I see in them, forgetting that they too can question, or fail to see, the way they shine. Just as I struggle with my own self doubts, so do they. I wish they could see themselves shine with my eyes, and with my heart.

I remind myself that to say “I love you” as often as the wonder of my love for them overflows my heart and fills my world might make the words near meaningless. And so I strive to live my love for them in my actions, my choices, my stillness, and my gratitude for the grace of their love in my life. I seek always a balance as I live my love. How can I live “I love you” by offering comfortable silence, a foot rub, a cup of tea, focusing extra energy and attention on the things that bring them joy, studying their comfort, and honoring their separateness and need for a space and time of their own? Remembering that honoring the beloved means honoring how they wish to be loved.

I pay attention to my motivations as I express my love for my loved ones. Leo Buscaglia has said "Love is always bestowed as a gift-freely, willingly and without expectation. We don't love to be loved; we love to love." I want to love that way. At the same time, the words of Samuel Beckett resonate with me as he writes "If you do not love me, I shall not be loved. If I do not love you, I shall not be loved." While I seek to avoid expressing love in an effort to have it returned, I do want to be loved. To feel the overflowing joy and comfort of being in the presence, or even in the thoughts and memory of the beloved. I also admit that I sometimes seek solace for my own loneliness and insecurity. It feels like this is not a part of loving itself so much as one of the ways we can care for one another in love.

I want to live my love as openly and genuinely as I can, partly because I need to, mainly because I find my greatest joy in growing closer, and simply being close, with my beloveds. At the same time, it is clear that there are ways that I might wish to express my love that are less easy for my beloveds to comfortably enjoy and accept. I’m not talking about anything out of the ordinary, extraordinary, sharing of love that is the gift we give and receive in loving. It’s just that even gazing into a loved one’s eyes, or saying “I love you”, or “I am in love with you” is sometimes more than is wanted or needed between lover and beloved.

My power and choice are only over the love that I give and express. How my beloveds feel and express their love for me is entirely their own. We are each responsible for how we live our love. In the end, I’m not sure I have power or choice over loving. My beloveds call forth love from me and I love the way I breathe. The way my heart beats. At my best, all this paying attention to how I can offer my best self blends into simply loving. I believe this loving will go on even after we die. I choose the way I express my love, and to some extent I choose how I experience their love for me. I may choose how much I attend to the warm peace, gentle oneness, pain of separation, aching loneliness, and soaring glory of the love I feel for and share with my loved ones.

The gift of a passing gentle touch, serving them in love with a meal, a glass of water or wine. The joy of listening to their voices as they share their feelings and memories. Of seeing their delight, sadness, intelligence, strength, gentle kindness, creativity, laughter, shining humanity, and love in their eyes and faces. Of being present together in the quiet of the morning, or at sunset, or any shared moment suspended in time.

There are moments of wonder that happen all on their own between those who love. Even when I am holding back, respecting the space between us, and my beloved is content to let things glow quietly with the warmth we share, flashes of pure love can join us gently together. The fabric of our love is woven of strong warm threads, sparkling with drops of dew shining in the light of joy. Especially without trying we can find ourselves sharing completely these moments of love. One loving warmth together for an instant that contains eternity.

I wish that we could live forever in moments like that, Beloved. Shining quietly, or singing together. Warm and bright like the sunlight on your shoulders and sparkling from the water. Two and One at once in love everlasting. I am working on remembering that we do.

As I live my love the best I can, I will hesitate in and measure my loving. Seeking the best steps for each partner, and each moment, in our dances of love. Ebbing and flowing like the waves that offer themselves to your bare feet. Inviting you to dance along the edge, run and dive in laughing, slip gently into the cool welcoming water, or stand and watch silently in peaceful joy. Just as you wish.

Someday we will shine revealed together beyond all space and time. Our colors joining and shimmering into aurora, starlight, moonbeams, and the light in your eyes that touches me gently in my deepest places and invites me to live always in love.

Just as we do now and always have.


I have taken care over these words. I could choose and polish them for hours more trying to make them right. I will let them go now as one more offering to my beloveds, and to all who love. There are so many more thoughts and feelings I would share about this most precious and vital feeling that gently weaves us together. That for me is the very fabric of the universe and the slow, sweet, lovesong that it sings. In my retirement, I will learn what more I choose to offer from my thoughts and feelings about love. For now, here is a poem I wrote as this past month of retirement began.


He Tries to Explain Himself

Do you know your eyes contain the sun,

and all her sister stars?

That your light warms my world and heart

as though I were always in your arms?

Do you know your laughter sings to me,

and your gentle silence sweeter still?

Your presence like the gentle rain

that brings the spring that greens these hills.

Close enough to hold my hand

or much too far away,

your light and music fill my life.

They bless my night and day.

To share this turning world with you

is comfort, peace, and shining glory.

So I will be my best for you,

and live my grateful joy.

I will not always speak my love,

honoring our quiet play.

When I am bold, I’ll sing my heart,

then shyly turn my eyes away.

Jim Michael - February 1, 2019

"A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books." - Walt Whitman

I tend to be a man who likes words, and I usually choose my words with care.  Today, I find myself thinking of the power of prefixes, and the differences between un, mis, and dis. What a difference there is between misinformation and disinformation. Much more important to our happiness in life is the difference between being unsatisfied and dissatisfied.

The first example is clearly a matter of intention. While there are many cases where we are unintentionally provided with misinformation, the intentional, and sinister, effort to use the power of disinformation to try to shape and control us is a much more serious matter.

I believe that there is a more subtle, and vitally important, difference in our intentions that distinguishes unsatisfied from dissatisfied. As we describe our unmet needs, and struggles with feelings like frustration, and loneliness, I think this difference can have an important impact of our happiness and satisfaction in life. I believe it is especially important how we describe these unmet needs to ourselves.

There are many kinds of need or hunger. Emotional, physical, spiritual, intellectual, social, and others. When I understand that my hunger is unsatisfied, I can choose to feed myself, or seek some relationship or experience that will feed my unmet need. Sometimes, there will not be a way to meet my needs, and understanding this I could choose to accept this reality, and consider how best to live with the situation.

If I instead respond to my unmet needs by choosing to be dissatisfied, I am failing to accept my responsibility for me own needs, and happiness. I am choosing to be “not content or happy with something” instead of simply “not satisfied”. Sometimes in my life, I have chosen to be dissatisfied, and it has never resulted in greater happiness or satisfaction for me. Not until I have intentionally turned away from dissatisfaction, and taken responsibility for my needs and feelings, have I found a way forward. Through action, acceptance or some combination of the two.

My choice to be unsatisfied as opposed to dissatisfied is also powerful in locating the power to address my unmet needs. When I choose to be dissatisfied, I am unhappy with the way I have been treated, and place the source of my dissatisfaction, and the power to resolve it, elsewhere. When I see my needs as unsatisfied, I locate the power to resolve the problem within myself, and accept responsibility for how I will address it. Perhaps when I choose to be dissatisfied I am trying to avoid responsibility, but I also give away my power to change my life for the better.

We all have responsibility for our actions in relationship to others. Certainly as adults we are responsible to meet the needs of our children, and of others dependent upon us. Any of us may fail in our responsibilities. When someone fails me, and the cause of my unmet needs lies with them, I can respond by recognizing, and even condemning, their failure, but still choosing to see myself as having unsatisfied needs. Instead of choosing the powerlessness of dissatisfaction, I can intentionally choose to accept responsibility for my actions, and claim the power to respond to the problems I face.

Accepting responsibility for my needs, and empowering myself to address them, offers me the best opportunity for satisfaction and happiness. Choosing to experience my unmet needs by being unsatisfied instead of dissatisfied is more loving to myself and those with whom I share my life.

(This essay is a departure from my writing about retirement here at Last 100 Mondays. I plan to continue that writing with a new essay in late February)

“The notion of chance. It has a distinct meaning for me. I do not know where I might have been led by the paths that, as I look back, I think I might have taken but that in fact I did not take. What is certain is that I am satisfied with my fate and that I should not want it changed in any way at all. So I look upon these factors that helped me to fulfill it as so many fortunate strokes of chance.” - Simone de Beauvoir in her autobiography “All Said and Done”

My last day before retirement was 18 months ago today.  As I look back on our celebration of Thanksgiving this past week, I am so very grateful for the career that allowed me to contribute to supporting our family, gave us the chance to travel to see so many beautiful places with our loved ones, and has allowed me to begin my retirement early.  I am grateful for the life we lead at Whisperwood, for the chance to walk among the trees, to see the flowers, feel the sun, rain, and snow on my face, and to be a part of the music of life. Most of all, I am thankful for my beloved Sue, our two wonderful sons, and all our loved ones. Living my love with them is the greatest gift of all.

Today, I share some thoughts about regret and redemption.  I am not a man who can say, as my father has, that I have no regrets.  I believe that I am a good man, but I know that some of my actions have failed to reflect the good in me.  There are actions I wish I could take back, and words I would unsay if I could. Some of my regrets are more profound and harder to bear. Though I’ve done nothing that should have seen me imprisoned, my remorse is very real, and I can be a prisoner of my regret at times. My deep belief in the power of redemption is partly inspired, I know, by my own very real need to feel that I have the opportunity in my life to redeem myself.

I imagine many of us fail to escape from our youth without regrets.  Our mistakes, and the remorse of regret, teach us important lessons. Parents wish they could teach their children well enough so that they might escape the sting of regret, and the slow pain of remorse.  I know that I harbor this wish for our sons. Still, it seems that many of us, and I am one, must learn through our mistakes and failures. I am deeply grateful for the lessons I have learned, and continue to learn, at the cost of regret and remorse.  I know that for those who fail to learn life’s deep lessons there is a different destiny waiting.

While I believe that the vast majority of my actions have reflected love, and have benefited my loved ones and community, I know that there have been moments when my actions have left others feeling hurt, angry, or disrespected.  Some of my regrets are for things I’ve done, said, or even thought, that no one else will ever know. Some regrets may seem small, but the lessons they teach stay with me. Long ago, I played a game with a loved one, lost, and was a poor sport about my losing.  We’ve never played that game again. My sadness and remorse at losing the chance to play it together have helped me remain a better loser.

I do not regret my feelings, though it can be hard not to regret my anger, for they can be my most honest teachers.  When I do the work to understand what my feelings are telling me, they can offer me some of the greatest insights into myself, and into my choices, actions, and opportunities for growth.  I have come to believe that there are no truly wrong thoughts or feelings. It is our choices and actions that can be right or wrong, and listening to the still small voice within speak through my emotions can help me make my choices.

Some of my actions have caused lasting damage, and these are the source of many of my deepest regrets.  Some have seen me betray my values, and some have helped to form my deepest convictions by teaching my hard lessons about things I never want to do again.  Where I have caused harm through my ignorance and selfishness, I wish I could truly make amends. I have apologized where I can, and have offered my apologies to the wind where the person I failed, hurt, or offended is lost to me now.  They do not owe me forgiveness, but I would cherish it if were granted me.

The worst of my failings are decades old, and I truly believe that I have grown to be a better man. The lessons I have learned in failing have informed my choices, values, and character. They have helped me as I’ve sought to provide leadership and guidance to others.  My regrets teach me still, and help me grow toward my best self. They can also leave me sleepless, and give me some of my most desolate times.

The best solace that I have found from the troubled nights and desolation of regret is in the notion of redemption.  When I look to the dictionary for a definition, I see that redemption is “the action of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil.”  I also see that there is an archaic use of this word to mean the action of buying one’s freedom.

Recently, I had a conversation with one of my loved ones about regret and redemption, and found myself explaining what redemption means to me.  We talked about my opportunity to use regret to inspire me in acting to do my best to make things right. About my belief that it is possible to overcome my mistakes, failings, and weakness. To grow stronger in my ability to do what is right with love. To earn the right to feel more at peace with my regrets by acting on what I have learned from them.

I take comfort in the opportunity to atone for my failings, and buy my freedom from regret, by taking action to heal the hurt I’ve caused, serve my loved ones and community, especially in ways that address the harm from mistakes like mine, and by growing to be a better man.  Just as I work to live my love in my actions toward my beloveds, I know that it means more to take right action from my regret than to simply say “I’m sorry”.

I am grateful to have learned from my mistakes, and I continue learning, and acting on what I learn, to redeem myself.  Learning to forgive myself is the hardest lesson, and one I am still learning. I am still my own worst critic, and my regrettable actions when I am hard on myself have more to teach me.  I know that some of the triggers for my depression and anxiety are here in my struggles with regret. Perhaps for me the price of my deepest redemption is learning to forgive myself, and not to forget.

Ultimately, I honestly believe I have done far more good than ill, and have actively worked to leave the world a better place than I found it.  I know that I have given the greatest part of my energy to living my love for my beloveds and my community, and to continuing to grow toward being my best self.  May I find my way beyond my lingering regrets, forgiving myself and accepting redemption, so that the energy I now spend regretting can be devoted to living in love, and in peace.

“And what is it to work with love? It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth. It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house. It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit. It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit.” - On Work, Kahlil Gibran from “The Prophet”

These past three months have given me wonderful opportunities to experience the joys of retirement, the satisfaction of hard work, and some balance between the two. After sharing some wonderful adventures on a road trip to Yellowstone with our family, I continued my part-time work at the university during June, and then took the month of July off.  Now I am back part time, and happily remembering the satisfaction of seeing our students start back to school this past week.

One of my very best friends preceded me into retirement, and his wish for me in returning to my part-time role was that I might find the work satisfying, and also learn just how much I enjoy being retired full time.  His wish is definitely coming true! I do find the work that I am doing at the university satisfying, and I am deeply grateful for the way my colleagues here welcome my contributions. Even more, I am grateful for their friendship and for the opportunity to serve alongside such fine people as I get my wish of transitioning gently from my old, more stressful, full-time role to my life in retirement.  I also know that I will be glad when the day comes that I finally go home from my work at the university for the last time. I will miss these people, and I will also be deeply happy to have even more time with my loved ones.

Managing my time well has been a challenge for me for as long as I can remember.  I began working at my first “paycheck” job when I was 15, and I’ve worked at something ever since.  When I’m not at work I love giving, especially to my beloveds, and I gain a great deal of joy from living my love for them in this way.  I’m far from perfect, but I feel that I’m often at my best when I’m paying attention to what they want and need, and doing what I can to help make those things happen for them.

I still have much growing to do in my ability to give to myself.  I’m still learning how to make time for what matters most to me, and to balance the many things I am interested in, and enjoy.  My beloved ones matter above all else, so living my love by giving to them will always be important to my joy, peace, and satisfaction.  Still, there are books to read, songs to write and sing, bread to bake, and walks to take in these mountains, or beside the sea. Alone with my thoughts and feelings, or with loved ones near.

 

My July off gave me some good practice.  With some time for giving, relaxing, and peaceful reflection.  Most of that month I spent working with all my strength building retaining walls out of oak railroad ties here at our home.  This is a project that needed to be done before the winter rains come, and a great opportunity to live my love. As of yesterday, this work is done, and I have moved many tons of earth, gravel, and wood.  Mainly with a pick and shovel, a wheelbarrow, a 5-gallon bucket, and the muscles of my body. I am glad I can still do this work. It is probably the most physically demanding job I’ve done since I was a young man.  It was deeply satisfying when my beloved Sue would come to see the work I’d done, and find it good. I’ve slept very well, and have been seldom troubled by anxiety or depression. Hard physical work is clearly good for me, and I’ll have to watch for good alternatives when the day comes that I can no longer do so much.

Mixed in with the work, there was some wonderful play.  About halfway through July, Sue and I had a relaxing trip to Cambria to celebrate our anniversary.  We spent most of those days walking or sitting on the beaches visiting and looking for pretty stones among the soft, smooth gravel.  We enjoyed beautiful sunsets, some sunny days, and the soft coastal fog. It was lovely to spend this time together, and to have some wonderful seafood, too!  Most of all, my heart and soul were filled with my overflowing love and gratitude to have a partner I can keep falling in love with over all these years.

My work here at home has reminded me how physical work affords me some of my best time to think and feel, and also to not think and feel as I move into the meditation of simply being and working with my body.  I was happy to have some peaceful times swimming in the lake when the smoke from this year’s forest fires cleared away. The cool embrace of the water against my skin after a hot day’s work is so relaxing. The work of swimming soothes my tired muscles with gentle, different motion, and this is also a wonderful time to think, feel, and simply be present in this beautiful place.

Often, my thoughts turn to love.  I have been making notes for over five years now, and hope someday to collect those thoughts into a series of essays.  It feels ambitious, and daunting, to write about this most important of all feelings. Who am I to presume to speak of Love? What do I have to add to a conversation going back even beyond Kierkegaard, and Socrates?  How will I have the courage to offer my thoughts and feelings simply, and to accept the inevitable questions, criticism, or silence? Perhaps someday I will dare to answer these questions.

Today, I will do my best to live in love.  To sometimes live my love out loud, and also to remember that I have a choice of how I act on my feelings.  That sometimes I will cherish feelings of love for those who are beloved to me without directly expressing them; instead seeking to have my awareness of this love inform my actions.  To live “I love you” instead of saying those most precious words aloud.

There are many things that can contribute to our falling in love. I believe that being and staying in love is another matter. Youthful beauty, and the heady infatuation of our discovering each other do not always burn as brightly as they did at first; though beauty that glows from within can grow warmer with the years. Attraction and desire, even when these feelings grow and evolve in a loving relationship, can only enhance and celebrate; not sustain. Even the meaning and value of common interest and shared experience, evolves with time. So, I say let your being in love be a constant journey to find a greater closeness with the beloved as they grow and change; a process of always discovering and rediscovering that which makes them wonderful to your heart and soul.

For me, there is a point beyond which is no such thing as loving one more than another. With unconditional love comes the suspension of any effort to measure or compare the depth, value or meaning of my love for those beloved to me. While the nature of my feelings of love is different for my child than for my sibling, or different for my friend than for my spouse, I do not love one more than the other; instead I love each, in their own way, completely. May I learn such unconditional love for myself as the years go on, and to accept love unconditionally.

May I work my love, and live my love, and sing my love, and share my love in grateful silence as I feel it overflowing this heart that my beloveds have filled with more than it can hold.  While I can hold them close and warm, I will. May our love go on flowing always beyond space and time, and may we find new ways to be close when my time in this good body, living together with them in this good world, is done.

"I pray — for word is out
And prayer comes round again —
That I may seem, though I die old,
A foolish, passionate man."

- W.B. Yeats in "A Prayer For Old Age" from "A Full Moon in March" 1935

My last day before retirement was one year ago this past Saturday.  It’s been a wonderful first year of retirement for me, filled with chances to relax, laugh, work, and learn.  Best of all has been the opportunity to spend more time with my loved ones.  In fact, I’m off on a road trip with my lovely wife and our two fine sons right now, so I wrote these words last week.  We are traveling through California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Montana so that we can spend time as a family in Yellowstone to celebrate our younger son John’s graduation from college.  We are so proud of him, and so very grateful that, when we asked him what he wanted most as a gift to recognize this great accomplishment, he said he’d like us to take this road trip together.  He has grown to be a strong and thoughtful man, and I’m curious and excited to see what life has in store for him next.

As we watched John complete the work of his undergraduate years, I began this next adventure in my life.  In some ways, it feels as though I simply happened to graduate a little less than one year before he did.  Each of us in our own way is charting his course into an unknown future.  I’ve learned a lot in the past year, especially about how precious time is, and I have learned the most from those who are closest to me.  I’ve begun to see myself a bit more clearly through John’s eyes, and there have been some surprises.  We are alike in many ways, and a mystery to one another in others, I think.  He can hold me accountable to be my best self with an inescapable honesty, and he sometimes leaves me nearly speechless with flashes of breathtaking kindness.  I know that I will have much to learn from him as we both grow through the years ahead.

I have learned about patience and quiet from our older son, CJ.  He often prefers to be quiet.  When he is excited to share his thoughts and feelings, I am eager to listen to what he has to say, and this is helping me learn more about listening to all of my loved ones with that kind of eagerness.  He deals with a disability with grace and patience, and has been so happy and excited to begin a new job recently.  He helps me remember to be more patient, especially with the hard work of being patient with myself.  He also reminds me to do one of my favorite things by remembering to look for the beauty that surrounds us.  CJ is masterful in his ability to see the tiniest details of nature, and to gently call them to our attention.  The night we came home from John’s graduation, he took me out the front door to look at the moon.  His joy at these moments can draw us in, and sweep us up in wonder.

I have learned so much in all the precious years of friendship and love that I have shared with my beloved Sue.  Lately, she has been teaching me more about courage, strength, and love.  Encountering a challenge recently, she has chosen to overcome it by courageously making changes that reflect her lifelong passion for self-reliance.  She’s often joked that she could be the poster-child for “I can do it myself”, and it has been inspiring to watch they way she’s chosen to take the steps that have helped her grow stronger.  It fills me with joy to watch her strength and courage rewarded with an ever-increasing energy and enjoyment of life.  Her creative fire, and warm love, shine more brightly than ever, and she inspires me every day.

I have learned from dear friends, from family, and from my colleagues. Friends have taught me in this year about being gentle with myself, and more able to accept love as unconditionally as I strive to give it.  They have called me to keep learning in retirement how to balance my thoughtful, introspective, side with my growing ability to relax and have fun.  I have learned from family even more about the simple joy of giving to one another, and from the littlest of our loved ones so much more about love. Oh, how my heart sings when their faces light to see me!

I have learned more from my colleagues, especially in these past few months of returning to work part time, about working together and about embracing change.  Especially sweet has been learning more about the deep satisfaction of watching others with whom I’ve shared this work grow and blossom to carry it on, each in their own special way.  I am grateful for the opportunity the university is giving me to continue contributing, and especially grateful that I get to work with the fine people here who are so dedicated to our students and their success.  Knowing that I will only be doing this for a limited time is helping me appreciate this passage from career to retirement even more, and to learn a lesson my dear friend wished for me when he said he hoped I would enjoy this new role at work, and learn just how much I enjoy being retired full-time!

Most of what I write, think, and feel brings home to me how very fortunate I am to share this wonderful life with my loved ones, and I am grateful.  I share some of what I’m learning, and many of the moments and memories that bring me joy here, on Facebook, and in letters and visits shared with my loved ones.  Of course, as wonderful as my life is, and as grateful as I am for all my blessings, no life is perfect.  A year into retirement, I see Facebook as my highlights reel, and remind myself that many of us share only our brightest, happiest moments there.  Even in my more personal letters and conversations, I tend to emphasize the positive.

Working or retired, many of life’s challenges remain about the same.  I still battle depression at times, and I am conscious of my flaws.  Some of the hardest times are when I fail my loved ones in some way.  Even when I have the very best intentions, sometimes I get things wrong and end up hurting when I meant to help.  I can be pretty hard on myself when this happens, and that isn’t helpful either.  I’m reminded of the half-joking remark I’ve often made that I’d hate to have my epitaph read, “He meant well…”.   I will always seek to improve myself, and there’s plenty of room for improvement.  Getting back on my feet, learning from my mistakes, returning to doing what is right with love even after failing temporarily in that mission, and back to feeling grateful is very helpful.

As I sit and write today, I find myself missing my mother more than I have in a long while.  She taught me so much about being myself, and just now she is teaching me about loneliness.  I am so very blessed by the love and closeness of my beloved partner, our sons, and the family and friends who help to fill our lives with joy.  Still, all of us deal with loss and loneliness in our lives.  With the absence of those who have gone on before us, and our distance from loved ones far away.  I feel my mother near today, helping me to strengthen my faith that those distances in time and space are not so great as I imagine.  Helping me to learn again that we are all one in love.

As I walked under the stars above our home here recently, with just a few wisps of cloud beginning to slide across the sky in front of coming storms, I found myself thinking about the light still shining from stars that have died.  The light from some, in galaxies visible with the naked eye, will still be shining for us millions of years after they are gone, leaving stardust behind to make new stars, and everything else that we know.  The hummingbirds and flowers in our gardens, and each of us, with all our human thoughts and feelings, are made from stardust.  

Even when a star has gone, its light shines on forever out across the universe.  Never slowing.  Never dimming.  I found myself thinking of the love of our loved ones who have gone on, perhaps to shine with the stars.  Just like the starlight, their love goes on shining within and around us forever.  Touching our lives with light, warmth, and wonder, and leaving us with questions unanswered until we join them one day to shine on for the ones that we love. Sometimes, the quiet under the stars makes it easier to hear what is in my heart.

Most of my days in this first year of retirement have been wonderful and fill my heart with music and joy.  Some even seem to me as though they are several lovely days, and I can remember days like this during vacations that made those shining times seem to last even longer.  I remember a day like that recently when just the morning I spent down by the lake with Sue gave me all I could hope for, and we came home laughing and smiling.  Happy for our time together. Then there was the day I spent after lunch working up the hill at our home clearing brush and splitting wood, feeling very content to be doing my chores surrounded by the flowers.

There was the day I spent late that afternoon swimming in the lake with the golden sunlight shining down through the green leaves onto the sparkling surface and into the depths below.  A day when I sat in the cool water out on the point filled with the glory and beauty of nature around me, my heart overflowing with love and gratitude.  That day was so peaceful and left me filled with joy, refreshed and ready to go home to see my family.  Finally, there was the day I enjoyed the comfort of being home with them, relaxing as night fell, the wonder of the vast universe of stars spread out overhead as I walked the dogs, and then lay in bed remembering all those wonderful days I’d lived between one sunrise and another.

This life I am living in retirement is so rich and full.  So filled with light and love, and touched with enough darkness and struggle to make the light shine brighter, and the warmth of love more welcome as it chases away the chill.  I still have much growing to do, and so much to learn.  I hope to have many years of growing and learning ahead.  Most of all, I welcome the opportunity to go on giving and sharing.  To continue loving.

My thanks to Carl Johnsen for the photo at the beginning of today’s essay.

"Those who love deep never grow old. They may die of age, but they die young."
- Arthur Wing Pinero from "The Princess and the Butterfly" 1897

This is the first Monday since I have been retired nine months, and I continue to be very happy about my decision to retire, and grateful that my work at the university has allowed me this opportunity. It is especially lovely to live in our beautiful mountains with my wonderful partner, Sue. In the past week, winter has finally come to the Sierra Nevada, and we’ve enjoyed looking out at the beautiful snow this past weekend. Even shoveling snow is enjoyable for me, and I indulged my playful nature by taking a break from my shoveling the other day to build a snowman. I’m sure it is at least fifty years since I built one of those by myself!

Most of my weeks feature a satisfying mix of useful, productive, work and time for things I simply want to do. There are the routine chores that need to be done, and I’m glad to be able to do my share. I often think of my paraphrase of a Zen koan. Before retirement, chop wood, carry water. After retirement, chop wood, carry water. This is so true, and it makes me smile, especially because, while I don’t carry a lot of water, I do chop and carry a lot of wood for our woodstove! I’ve found that doing physical labor provides some of my best opportunities to think about the big questions, and to not think at all. When I’m splitting firewood, cutting and raking brush, shoveling snow, or doing similar chores, I often experience a peaceful feeling similar to meditation, or find myself thinking about love, eternity, and why we are here.

I enjoy reading, writing, walking in our mountains, and time to visit with friends and loved ones. I’ve taken the advice from my beloveds to get out of the house and stay active, and I am walking with a neighbor who is about my father’s age. He’s an interesting man, and we both get a lot of good from our walks and visits. I take time to work with my hands and find great satisfaction in working with wood, and cooking. The feel of the wood, or dough, in my hands, the scent of fresh-cut cedar, or baking bread. The satisfaction of making something beautiful or nourishing for a loved one, and the joy of thinking of those I’m making things for as I work, is lovely.

As always, I get great joy from music. Taking time to play and sing, by myself, for my friends and loved ones, or to play and sing with others at a local pub, is such great fun, and so relaxing! I continue to learn some good new things. To gain more confidence with instruments I haven’t played as much, and to find new ways of playing the guitar after nearly 50 years. I continue to catch new songs from time to time, and there are many songs I’ve started over the past year that I would like to spend some time with, so they can help me finish what we’ve started together. I'm looking forward to playing a benefit with some friends for one of our local community organizations later this week, and I’ve even started going to some meetings of a local ukulele club. There are endless ways to be part of the music, and it’s such a lovely way to experience all we share.

Beginning in January, I have gone back to work part time and I am enjoying that opportunity. I’d always hoped this would be an option for me, and I am grateful to the university for this chance to keep contributing while I taper off from full-time work, and to earn a few extra dollars in the process. One of my very best friends, who has retired and not returned to work, said to me that he hopes I’ll enjoy being back at work, and that it will help me realize just how much I enjoy being retired full time. I’m pretty certain that’s what will happen. It’s great to see the people here again, and to be useful in their work together. It’s wonderful to have been offered the chance to work at the things I am best at, and most enjoy, while spending little to no time on the parts of the job I never much liked. We’ve agreed that I’ll work for a number of months, and then we’ll decide together if I will continue for a while longer. I know there will come a day when I will happily return to full-time retirement!

The most valuable advice I received as I prepared for retirement continues to be that I should have a plan for my time, as I will be busier than I expected to be. That is certainly true. There are so many projects I’d like to get done, both practical and for sheer enjoyment, so many books I’d like to read, things I’d like to think and write about, songs I’d like to write, and sing. There are so many hours I’d like to spend in the mountains, or at the lake, so many places I’d like to go and see with Sue. A list of adventures we’d like to share with friends. So many hours I’d like to spend with her, and all our loved ones. It’s over nine months since I retired, and I still need to finish getting my home office set up! I’m getting there, one step at a time, but it is a lesson in priorities. I’ve also begun volunteering time with political causes that I support, and it feels good to be doing something that I hope will make a difference in that sphere as well.

I am so grateful that retirement has given me more time for Sue, our loved ones, family, and friends. I have had more time to spend with them, and to do things for them. Most of this time has been a great joy, and some has been spent as we deal, together, with some of the harder things in life. Age and illness touches every family, and I do what I can to offer loving support, especially to our loved ones bearing more of the burden of care, or facing the sad and difficult times that come to us all. I’ve also had some wonderful satisfying times spent talking with younger members of our family about career and future, and I’m touched that they find talking with me helpful. My experience with mentoring, and simply listening, during my career is bringing an added sweetness to being a father, uncle, brother, and friend.

I’m also finding opportunities to grow as a person. Even as an older, retired, man, I still find that I need to work on my self-assurance. Caring for those I love has always been central to who I am, and I’ve always needed to work on loving myself. There are still times when I worry more than I should about whether I am enough. Giving enough. Loving enough. Understanding and caring enough. Quiet enough. I do talk a lot. I’ve often reminded others to be gentle with themselves, and I work to take my own good advice. I need to make more of an effort to have social times with friends, especially now that I have so much more opportunity to stay at home. I’m grateful for the technology that helps me stay close to loved ones across the miles, and I will keep visiting with them this way when we cannot be together. I’m working to make more time to spend with people closer to home. Planning lunch or dinner with friends, nurturing new friendships as the shape of my life changes in retirement. I am looking forward to a visit with friends at SHARE in Sacramento next week, and I’m glad that Sue and I can combine that with some new adventures of our own.

In retirement, I find myself looking forward, and looking back from a new perspective. Looking back, for the most part I am happy with what I see. I am so deeply thankful for the people and experiences that have made my years so rich and meaningful so far. We’ve laughed and cried, and grown together. We’ve seen so many wonderful places and moments. I’ve met with grace when I have failed, and with patience that helped me grow stronger, braver, more humble, and more loving. It is thanks to my loved ones, my beloved partner Sue, our sons, my mother, sisters, all our family, and beloved friends, that I have grown to be the man I am today. I become my best self by living in a relationship of love with them. I have looked with love into their eyes, and found their love for me shining back. It is the greatest blessing.

Looking forward, I am filled with hope, wonder, and the wish that I will be granted many more years to share with my loved ones the two greatest gifts we can be given. The gifts of time, and love. Way we walk together under the stars, through the forest, and by the water. May we hear the laughter of our children and grandchildren. May we feel each other near in the silence of our hearts. Always, even when my years are done, may I find myself gazing into their eyes with love, and find the love we share shining back to me.

© 2018 James Michael. The text of this work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0

“The wisest man just goes on living

Takes the days that he is given

Counts his blessings up to ten

Makes his mark begins again.” - David Francey from his song, “Poorer Then”

I’ve been retired for six months today, and I’m enjoying this new chapter of my life very much. We have just celebrated thanksgiving and I am thankful for everyone who helped me earn the opportunity to enjoy retirement. Most of all I am grateful for my wonderful partner, Sue. Without her, I’m quite certain that I would not be where I am today. With her, retirement is even more wonderful.

I am grateful to the mentors and colleagues who saw more in me than I saw in myself, who helped me learn the lessons I needed to learn, and who worked alongside me all those years. I am especially thankful for the colleagues who became friends, and the friends who became family. These precious loved ones have added so much joy and richness to my life.

I feel a gratitude beyond words to my family and all my loved ones. To our sons who fill my heart with pride every day. To my sisters who have warmed my life with love since we were very small indeed. To their kind and loving husbands, and the families they have made together. Nieces, nephew, and now great-nieces and nephews, too! To all the little ones in my life. You help me remember what matters most. To my brother-in-law and his wife. Ours is a close family and one of my very greatest blessings. To my parents who helped me grow, and welcomed me home when I wandered. Especially to my mother. In so many ways, I am who I am because of her.

Among the things I said thanks for this Thanksgiving, is the ability to keep growing always. That is really coming in handy! Among other things, I am still learning how to find a rhythm in retirement. It remains far busier than I ever imagined. This also reminds me to thank everyone I spoke to as I planned for my retirement. You told me to expect this! I imagined I would have more time for the things I wrote about doing in retirement. I expect I will have time for them in the months and years ahead, but I’m having to adjust my expectations as to how much, and how quickly.

Retired life isn’t perfect, of course. I have had some of the same challenges with depression that I have had most of my life, and it is important for me to focus on all the wonderful things I have to be grateful for and not the few that I find dissatisfying or disappointing. Fortunately, as an optimist, I’m pretty good at that! Most challenging are the ways in which I can be dissatisfied with myself. I am conscious of my regrets, flaws, and failings. I am taking some specific steps to address these. It is helpful to remind myself of all that is good about me, and that I am still a work in progress in retirement. A work that I can improve with honesty and effort.

I have also found that I can need reassurance, and this remains true in retirement. I don’t always ask for the reassurance I need. I tend to be a very positive person and I’m upbeat much of the time. I try to appear that way even when I’m having the tougher moments we all experience. When I was working, I used to believe I could always make things right or better by working harder. I’m sure that was nonsense, but it did seem reassuring. Now, it feels like I don’t really have that option, though I work hard on things at home to help myself feel useful and valuable. Sometimes I ask loved ones for the reassurance I need. I am also working to reassure myself so that I require less reassurance from others. I think of my loved ones and remember the many positive and loving things they have said about me as we share our lives together. I remind myself that I am loved, look honestly at myself, and see that I’m doing many good things in my life.

I believe that what I am experiencing is a normal part of my adjusting to retirement. As I change the way I spend my time, I am also learning to bring a new perspective to understanding that I am making good choices, and making meaningful contributions in the lives of those around me. I also remind myself that it is perfectly appropriate for me to enjoy my retirement! My wife and I have always supported each other in the idea that communication is a good thing. Open, caring, communication is one of the best ways to keep my relationships with my loved ones strong and to let light into my dark places where it can help me see myself more clearly. It is in communicating the deep love I feel, through my actions as well as my words, that I find some of my most genuine and peaceful moments.

As we’ve talked, Sue has reminded me of some of the best advice I received as I prepared for retirement. That there would be many demands on my time, that I would need to have a plan, and priorities, for my time, and that it would be wise to make sure to set time aside for myself. Time to honor my priorities and the things that bring me joy, including my relationships, music, reading, writing, and time outdoors in the natural world. With her encouragement, I’ve set a day aside each week to do as I please. These “me days” help us both make time for what matters.

As I take time for projects, chores, errands, and appointments that are entirely necessary, and often very satisfying, I remember paraphrasing and old Zen saying to read ”Before retirement. Chop wood. Carry water. After retirement. Chop wood. Carry water.” That is certainly true. There is always much to do, and figuring out how to set, and honor, the right priorities has been an important part of what I’ve been learning. We’re making time for many things, and these have included the practical things that need doing, and lots of time for travel, family, friends, and fun, too. I am satisfied and happy to keep learning. With the changing seasons, the rhythms of my life in retirement change as well. I have replaced swimming at the lake with other exercise for the winter. As I prepare for more indoor time, I am also making time to be outdoors and in wilderness, hiking and walking when the weather is fine, and continuing to go with Sue to Yosemite each month.

I feel my awareness of gratitude rising again as I think back on these past six months. I’ve begun to learn what it means for me to be retired. I’ve worked and played alongside my beloved partner. We’ve spent time with family, traveled to find new and beautiful places, and to share time with our loved ones. I’ve had the chance to laugh, and talk, sing, and sit quietly with those I love. To walk, and sit alone with the beauty of nature around me. To think about what matters, and to stop thinking and simply be. I am a very lucky man.

© 2017 James Michael. The text of this work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0