Well, yesterday morning was a turning point. Downside became upside.
End became beginning. Winter became spring. I had said the hell with the ache
from this nagging shin splint. Actually, I was saying the hell with this
nagging ache in my spirit, but didn't want to admit that at the time. I wasn't
in my rhythm. I hadn't been for the last few months. I had been chalking it
off to a lingering ache from that imbuprofen hiddden shin splint. I didn't
realize that I had been deluding myself until about half way into my walk.
About a mile out, as I walked the dark, quiet, pre-dawn streets, I suddenly
stopped, looked around me, gazed at the dark cloudy sky. Before the colors of
a dawning sun streaked across the sky, I felt an inner, "I've had it with me,"
"Damascus moment" dawning.
There is a Zen saying: "as irrigators lead water where they want to
nurture their crops, as archers make their arrows straight hit the target, as
carpenters carve wood create beauty, so the wise shape their hearts and minds.
Well, lately I haven't been watering my crops, the arrows I have been
fashioning were so crooked they couldn't have hit the proverbial broad side of
the barn, my carvings were anything but eye-catching, and I certainly have not
been wise. You see, I let this unexpected, unwanted, so fast upon me, in from
left field, unprepared for, and sudden retirement get to me. I felt I was
being put into a corner where I didn't want to be, having to make a decision I
didn't want to make, having to do what I didn't want to do. Since the
beginning of August, outside the classroom, I have been something of a growling
bear. I haven't been easy to live with. I've been a mixture of deep sadness,
disappointment, and inner raging anger. The only relief I had was in Susie's
arms and in the classroom. Otherwise, I felt old, over the hill. I felt it
was over. I saw myself as the caterpillar whose world was coming to an end as
it entered a cocoon.
We here in the States are talking about the "fiscal cliff" approaching
in a couple of weeks if Congress doesn't get it's act in shape. Well, I felt I
had gone over my cliff. The University has just gotten a new president whom I
like, really like. "Admire" is a better. "Deeply respect" is closer to the
truth of my attitude. He's my kind of person. Who is on the same page as I
am. With whom I was really looking forward to supporting and working with, as
much as a classroom grunt can. And, now? Then, there was the last day of a
class when at the end of that class a student came up to me, tears in her eyes,
hugged me, and thanked me as she told me that my telephone call to her one
fateful night a couple of months ago after reading her journal entry came at
the very time she had a bottle of pills in her hand. That same day, the
students in the Holocaust class gave me a magnificent plaque commemorating a
tree in Israel they bought in my honor in gratitude for "educating students on
the importance of humanity." Want to talk about being thrown into a funk?
I was having a lot of "those days" since my official announcement of my
retirement at the beginning of August. All the "congratulations" from
well-meaning people didn't help. They only exacerbated the situation. Their
words sounded so matter-of-fact, so expected, so trifling, so trite, and so
cliched. Their smiles looked so "put on." One person came up to me and sort
of summed it up, saying, "Congratulations! You're lucky. I envy you. Now you
can do everything you've wanted to do!" What the heck? I didn't understand
and yet I did understand. I was doing everything I wanted to do! Is that so
rare, I asked myself. I had known about it was from studies that showed only
10% of the people in the workforce were truly happy with their jobs, but now
that truth was hitting me square in the face. I was one of those "10 %-ers"
who loved what he was doing and doing what he loved. I was a teacher! I was
making a difference in students' lives! I was changing the world! I was
altering the future! Now, it would be no more. What the hell was there to
celebrate? They think I'm happy just because they'd be happy? I didn't feel
in any congratulatory mood. Even though I was snarling inside with a screaming
"I don't want to retire," my darling, angelic Susie, kept admonishing me. "Put
on your smilie face, They don't understand. They mean well."
I had been losing my way. I increasingly felt lost. I was
off-balance. Well, it's two weeks since I officially retired. During those
two weeks I was talking with three people to whom I am indebted, not the least
of whom is my Susie. Every time I felt I was going over the cliff, there she
was with a loving lifeline of a shoulder, an ear, hug, a touch, a kiss. God,
after 47 years, I still can't believe how lucky I was to have had that blind
date I didn't want have. And, then, there were two "been waiting for you" and
"you can still be a teacher" and "you'll just have a different 'classroom'"
conversations with my good friends Todd Zakrajeck and Don Fraser. Then, last
Sunday I watched a segment CBS' "Sunday Morning."
So, there I was. Yesterday morning. Standing in the middle of a dark
street. Feeling my heart pounding. Intensely aware of my breathing,
deliberately listening to the rhythmic almost mesmerizing passage of air in and
out of my lungs. The pace of my breathing and of my heart beat had nothing to
do with pushing my body. It had everything to do with pushing my soul. It was
filling with feelings. My mind was filling with thoughts. May spirit was
filling with anticipating happiness. I was having a "Spencer Tracy moment"
from GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER, whispering a "I'll be a son-of-a-bitch" to
myself. I went over to the curb, sat on the cold concrete, and losed my eyes.
With my eyelids shut tight, I looked with my heart's eye at and saw all those
circumstances I was letting determine my mood and at all those people who were
trying to tell me who I was and what I should do and what I will do. Unhinged
by the slightest gesture and the smallest comment. Annoyed, seeing that
nothing was slight or small. Frustration, sadness, anger--and fear--imagining
my life would be ruined by retirement. Followed by guilt of what I had been
putting Susie through. Facing self-deception. Not feeling proud about all
these feelings. But, if I am to take credit for positives, I have to take
responsibility for negative ones. Then, a good talking to me. I focused once
again on my Self. "Louis, dammit. They're right. Susie is right! You're the
one who is wrong. You won't be a different person in retirement from the
person you were in the classroom. You'll feel different, but deep inside you
won't be a different person." I realized that I had become disconnected from my
Self. I had let my on solid footing with my Self be liquified by this
earth-shaking retirement stuff, my consistent Self become inconsistent, my
unshakable Self be shaken. I was watching myself think and feel. I realized
retirement had nothing to do with my imbalance and losing my way. It was all
me. I had lost control. But, I'm still there. I'm still intact. Time to
regain control. Time to reunite me with Self into one.
I'll be damned if I'm going to ride off into some sunset and go quietly
into the good night. I'm going to keep walking toward the sunrise and make
noise during the good daylight. No, burnt out shell of an old man for me. I
am going into at least four businesses. First, I am going to keep writing and
sharing my Random Thought. I'm going to keep being up on things. Second,
having contacted Amazon's CreateSpace, I am going into the self-publishing
business. I've got literally at least nine--NINE--books to put together, and I
am not going to wait for a profit conscious publisher say yea or nay: a
"biography" of the early history of Valdosta's Jewish community I call "Chant
of Ages, Cry of Cotton" that had been "pink slipped" because publishers want me
to do what I don't want to do, a "Dictionary of Teaching "(lousy title, I know)
drawn from selected Random Thoughts, six volumes of archived Random Thoughts I
may put individually or into two or three box sets that a lot of people have
been clamoring for me to publish, and putting together the student reflections
during the Holocaust class' Star Project that I may call "Yellow Star." As for
the third business, like Paladin of the old TV western: "Have Vision, Will
Travel." I'm going to spread the word and put myself out there to do workshops
on my experience, methods, and vision of teaching, as well as on my philosophy
of education, for anyone who's willing to listen and talk with me--for a fee.
And, if they don't pick up my offer, that's okay. And finally, maybe the most
important, I've got to get to work on Susie's long "honey-do" list.
I think there is a lesson in this for all of us. You see, I suddenly
saw that I could live a purposeful life, one built around doing things that I
love doing and that matters, during what has been called the "waning," "leaving
behind" years of traditional retirement. Remember I had said that everyone had
been telling me how to act? Everyone had been telling me who to be? Everyone
had been telling me that retirement is great? The truth is that everyone had
been telling me about them, not about me. I was not telling me much of
anything worthwhile. Well, now its time I tell me about me. Where I couldn't
imagine doing anything outside the classroom, I now can see how being in this
different time and place I can continue living a purposeful life and making a
difference in the lives of others. To me, teaching was not a job; it was not
work; it was fun, hard fun, but serious fun; it was joy, hard joy, but not
superfluous joy; it was such a labor of love that all the time and effort never
seemed laborious. Then, I realized what I had been doing and want to
continue doing is not bound by time, place, or even people; that "leaving" and
"making" and "being" should be one. By that I mean, people talk of leaving a
legacy. How about being one, now. People talk about leaving the world a
better place. How about making it a better place, now. People talk about
leaving tracks behind. How about making those tracks, now. Before the sun
rose, it dawned on me that retirement is not composed of left-over years, but
of different years; that desire, purpose, meaning, significance, fulfillment,
satisfaction are not determined by age. Vitality need not be reinventioned,
but merely continued. Satisfaction, meaning, fulfillment can occur in a host
of life stages so that you never really leave the stage.
Sure, we'll spoil the grandmunchkins at our leisure; sure I'll take
vacation trips with my Susie when we want. But, I'm still in the game. I'm
still on the field. No substitutions for me. No bench warming or standing on
the sidelines for me. No being a mere pom-pom bearing cheerleader. Pity party
is over. No more being a caterpillar. I'm a butterfly emerging from the
cocoon beginning a new life. In the words of a recent Cal Thomas column, no
more mope, just hope. In my words, no more dour and sour, just sweetness; no
more sore, just soar; no more anger, just joy. To paraphrase Tommy Mercer's
lyrics, just accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative. I will
not let this retirement thing become my identity!!
All in the course of a few short minutes. Yeah, a "Damascus moment"
it was.
I took a breath, a deep breath, a breath to my tippy toes. I looked
around, noticing the sun peeking over the distant trees. Silly me. I thought
I was walking on my route. But, my walking routed me back to my way. Relaxed,
my spirits lifted, I lifted my body up from the curb, I focused on the streets
ahead. Refreshed, renewed. New. I finished my walk effortlessly as if I
had the wings of Mercury on my shoes. I'm back in my rhythm. Everything around
me will change. I won't; and I hope I won't make that mistake again. It'll be
like walking a balance beam: just shift my weight, extend my arms, teeter
here, totter there, keep my balance, stay upright and steady, and have a lot of
fun doing it. And, if I fall off, just hop back on and start all over. I'm
fine. Welcome to life.
Make it a good day
-Louis-
Louis Schmier
http://www.therandomthoughts.edublogs.org
203 E. Brookwood Pl http://www.therandomthoughts.com
Valdosta, Ga 31602
(C) 229-630-0821 /\ /\ /\ /\
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/ \ / \
/ \/ \_ \/ / \/
/\/ / \ /\ \
//\/\/ /\ \__/__/_/\_\/
\_/__\ \
/\"If you want to climb
mountains,\ /\
_ / \ don't practice on mole
hills" - / \_
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