Life, Now

Finally, more than one full year after my retirement, I am beginning to feel like I am becoming the person I was always supposed to be.  For the curious, that would be pioneer-hunter-gatherer-survivalist.  Who would ever have predicted this?  I understand that there is often regression as part and parcel of the aging process.  Often we become less capable in skills we had once mastered, less interested in the new and exciting developments brought to us via modern business, less adventurous in the wilderness. We may even eventually return to very early childhood-like behaviors.... eating soft foods, needing reminders to zip, and even (shudder) returning to diapers and sides on the bed again. No, no... I am not yet even close to these final stages and really hope to simply pop off one day before I have to ask someone to turn me over in bed because I can no longer do that. Actually, I can think of good reasons to ask someone  to turn me over in bed but disability is not one of them. I digress.  I feel kind of reborn, if you will, into a new time, a simpler time, but one filled with lots of hard work not typically done by your average middle-age ex-teacher person.  We have lived a fairly conventional life made up of regular jobs and paychecks, kids involved in school and sports and on to college, their own marriages and lives, and plenty of grocery shopping using the family van. We now have the empty nest and I quit... I am essentially now a kept woman, as the hubby toils away still, bringing home the real bacon. Someday, he will also discover the joys of retirement, but not yet.  I would invoke the Italian phrase "dolce far niente", translated as "so sweet to do nothing"... but that is not exactly accurate either.  I ask your indulgence as I employ that old saw "we are human beings, not human doings" The "doing"  vs "being" distinction is important.  I am certainly not ready to be nothing and I am certainly not doing nothing.  I simply do not know the Italian words  for "so sweet to be what I want to be when I want to do whatever or be some way or another".

Our habitat of choice is fairly isolated, not far from people but home is not a peopled place. We are connected to the world via satellite and internet, telephone and automobile. Now, I find days go by without using the car. I stick around here. I have not given up the electronic connections but can actually imagine not having the television and internet.  We have been without both of those for most of early life and many of our adult years. The TV would not be missed. The computer seems to have replaced human contact with email and facebook contact, though it is useful for making party invitations. It has supplanted cookbooks, newspapers, gossip magazines, real letters and cards, phone conversations, books and travel agents. I hear they are working on replacing teachers in public schools with internet learning, and we know it is used for higher education, if you call an online program an education. Here again rises my outraged atavistic perspective, that real learning comes from relationships and common experiences, not from a list of facts and reading recommendations. But I suspect I will lose this battle.  Not the first nor the last. How much of this should I keep to myself? I am sure I will eventually be proven correct...


I am still evolving and the world is evolving. We are just following different spirals, sometimes almost touching but generally on our own inevitable tracks.  I wonder if my pioneer-hunter-gatherer-survivalist persona will become more apparent or necessary with time. Today my big decisions are should I make apple sauce or apple butter out of the 20 pounds of drops I picked up today?  Or maybe just dehydrate them until a better idea comes along? The sauerkraut is fermented and canned... should I start a new batch or make coleslaw and cabbage soup? Should I gather the cabbage in the garden all in before the woodchuck finds it? Will this or that field be better for a couple of sheep?  I sometimes have to work to keep my thoughts from considering post-apocalyptic scenarios, where the survivalist piece might be useful. Not World War Z but there are plenty of weirdos out there and lots of heavy weaponry. I mostly like where I find myself these days, working on things that seem almost ready to disappear from modern knowledge and experience. Vermont is a great place to be this way.. a place where good husbandry, good food, simple pleasures, caring communities and a vibrant history and culture are valued and practiced.  Maybe I just have to evolve a bit more into this life as it is, now that I have shed the shackles of the workaday world. Here, the only deadlines are the ones I set for myself...