For retirees...and for those who have eight minute's reading time available

NOW THAT I'M 70 plus

I woke up this morning around 3 a.m. Again. I’m not sure what I was thinking or dreaming when I was asleep, but I was certainly in the middle of something or other when I opened my eyes and looked up in the darkness.

Princess Matilda Mirabella was lying next to me, head poking out from under the sheets, between me and Jeannine. I touch her tummy and she purrs.

As is often the case when I wake so early, all the things that flooded my brain seemed so important and so challenging. I must write to so and so. When am I going to that school in Denver? Why was I meeting with the prof next week? What's her agenda? Who was I having coffee with tomorrow afternoon? Did I need to? Will Matilda regain her sight?

I dozed off and woke up again around 5.30, and it was time to get up, give the Princess Matilda her breakfast, switch on the heating in the bedroom and the kitchen, turn on NPR, and make a pot of tea.

As I ate my cereal, bathed in 2% milk and covered with slices of fresh banana, I opened the New York Times. As is so often the case, each page was filled with yet more stories of corruption, rape, murder and international strife. I pushed it aside and opened my brown leather Filofax, picked up my blue pen and wrote down what I needed - and planned - to do today. 

Funny, I so enjoy using a pen  and typically fill five lines in the daily diary section before the day begins. 

That ritual completed, I opened my Ipad and wrote three emails to teachers who want me to visit their classrooms, and another to a writer who has asked me to review her books. I confirmed also that I would be at a HOA meeting tomorrow night - and another the following week. Then I remembered the one thing I needed to do quickly was to sort out a financial issue between a teacher and the university. I was brought into the ongoing issue last night, and I knew I can sort it out by way of a strong email.

Then I noticed the AARP Bulletin magazine lying on the table. It came in yesterday’s post. The magazine doesn’t usually contain anything that interests me, BUT the second page caught my eye. There was a picture of an old fella with the caption, ‘My grandfather didn’t retire. He traded his cap and gown for a mop’.

I read the title of the article, ‘The magic of the fountain of youth’, written by Jim Toedman, the Editor of the AARP magazine. I skimmed through the text as I spooned away at the bowl of cereal. John Smith, I read,  was a speech and drama professor who retired at 70. The next day he was hired as custodian. John learned new work skills and spent the next 15 years mopping floors and emptying trash cans.

That made me think.

I’m now half way through my 70^th year. Like John Smith, I retired from the world of education at 70.

I didn’t become a custodian. What, in fact, do I do?

When Jeannine went off to work, around 7, carrying all she needed for another full day with her class of fifth graders, I made another pot of tea and took my medication (I had quite the scare late November when it was discovered I had blocked arteries. I was told I needed to change the habits of a lifetime, exercise more, eat healthier food, and generally look after myself). The question lingered in my mind.

I took out my laptop and started to write.

What DO I do?

Scratching my head, I thought for a while. Then it hit me. The best way to tackle and document what it is that fills up my hours, days and weeks is to first describe what I will do today, a typical day now in my life, as it unfolds.

First, I’ll cut up the skin of the banana into tiny pieces and put into a plastic bag. When I empty the teapot, the tea bags will join the banana skin, and, when I’m ready, taken to one of the three composters at the side of the house. I love composting, and, as long as the chemistry - and the worms - do what they should in the spring, I should have some rich compost to add to my garden, thus feeding the dry, starved soil with nutrient. Later today I might go and turn the compost over and mix it up a bit. And as I do, think about this and that and the other.

Then, I’ll go to my study and water the 37 plant cuttings sitting in cut Starbucks’ coffee containers perched in the windowsill. I have another clear plastic egg container to use with more cuttings that I’ll probably take from the stonecrop growing out on my deck. I am looking forward to getting back to the garden again and spring can’t come quickly enough.

Next, the birds need their breakfast, so I will fill 6 birdfeeders, knowing that the birds have to take their turn after the deer and the squirrels have taken what they need. If I’m lucky, the one deer who isn’t scared of me might come and take seed from my hand. 

Interacting with the wildlife here is such a thrill. Seeing a fox go by the window, hearing the coyotes, watching the rabbits dart to and from the big bush at the top of the drive, and then trying to identify all the birds that come, full of chatter,  to the bird feeders, always brings a smile.

Matilda may go out with me. Now that she’s lost her sight, I have to help her find her way around the outside of the house. I stay very close and I’m sure she feels safe.

That done, I'll have a drink of water and open my laptop and start blogging. 

Mywishingrock.blogspot.com is a new challenge for me and I love adding to it. My blog has become a depository for my notes, my pictures and my memory bank. Today I’m going to add a new post. I cleared away some of my papers the other day and discovered many articles I’ve written on inquiry science. They need filing somewhere where I (and anyone else interested) can access them. My blog seems to be the place.

Sometimes I go to the library for an hour, sit far back in the corner, and write. I think I will do that this morning because I really do need to move on with my second memoir. I’m struggling a bit to put together the last few chapters that are going to describe my work as teacher of teachers, from 1996 to 2011. 

I’ll get it finished sometime, I know, then I will have to decide how and where to publish it. Xlibris, the publisher of my first memoir, didn’t do a very good job editing.

Just before lunch, I’m going for a brisk walk around the lake. It’s about a mile, and I went there yesterday with a friend, and was so taken by the hordes of Canada Geese quacking and screeching as they slipped on the sheet of ice covering the whole lake. When I go,  I shall pick up trash at the local Bird Sanctuary, and swear again (as I do) at those inconsiderate people who throw cigarette packets, plastic Vodka, Whiskey and Gin bottles, beer cans, and plastic bags from their cars. It upsets me when I find the skeletons of mice and voles trapped inside bottles.

Lunchtime, and, today, it’s a treat. I’m going to have a crab sandwich and a glass of ice water. Yummy! Can’t wait. If I feel really naughty, I might even have a blob of ice cream…………

Then, I have to get some stuff ready for my first teacher workshop on Thursday evening (How do you build classroom community?), print off some science activities for my Thursday afternoon, hour-long session with 2^nd graders, write to a middle school to see if they have any vacancies for a couple of teachers I know seeking new positions, check with a friend on her health, and get my file out for tonight’s meeting with the local school board (I’m there as a representative from the two local public schools).

OK.

Matilda is now rubbing the side of her face on my laptop. She needs another juicy breakfast and a cuddle.

I’m going to make this a new post on my blog…………not that anyone will read it, but it was good for me to sit and think about what I do, now that I am over 70 and looking more closely at my health.

I don’t have a mop and bucket, but I think I fill up my time in a way that feeds my brain and stretches my muscles. 

Do you agree?

One big difference, too, between me and the fella who became a custodian. 

He was paid for his work..........

February 27th, 2013.
An update.

I've just read the above and thought it would be a dead good idea to bring any reader up to date:

First, I am on the Accountability Committee as the Community Rep. at two schools: mountain View Elementary, and North East Elementary.

I have recently been elected as the Chairman of the Pinery Community Services Committee, and as Secretary of the Pinery HOA Executive Committee.

I will now support Jo Ann (The Pinery HOA) in creating and editing the HOA monthly magazine.

I teach science to a class of second graders every Thursday afternoon at Mountain View and recently ran two after school science classes for parents and children.

I have just completed two science workshops for kids at Buffalo Ridge Elementary School, and, mid March, run two evening classes for parents and children at the same school (Let's work with a scientist).
(All stuff I have written for these classes I now have filed, if anyone wants a copy, just let me know.)

I continue to watch the wildlife............and pick up litter.....and yesterday had a letter published in the Pinery magazine:

So, I'm still in the world of education really, aren't I?

Just swapped my cap and gown for a sweater and a pair of jeans...........oh, and payment? A smile and a cup of coffee will suffice.:)