Walking the Labyrinth

Here’s something no one ever tells you about retired life. You spend 50% of your time living it and 50% of your time trying to figure how to schedule what you’re going to live.

Back when you were working, many of your colleagues, some of them friends, were in the same community space. You didn’t have to schedule a lunch—just turn up in the staff lunch room. Meetings every Tuesday guaranteed some time to sit together and talk, even though much of it was about business. The only time you had to think about planning or responding to a social event was mostly the weekend. 

 

And in yet earlier times, especially in towns or rural settings, you just saw the people you knew all the time. Passing them on the street or sitting with them in church or running into them at the market. There were the occasional big scheduled events like weddings and funerals, a town meeting or a concert in the local hall. But mostly you had the luxury of just casually hanging out, sometimes passing a neighbor’s house and just knocking on the door to see what they were up for and could you have a cup of tea together?

 

In today’s busy, complex world, everything feels like it needs to be scheduled. Remember when you got a phone call or called someone and didn’t say, “Do you have a minute to talk?” You just talked! Imagine that!

 

This is on my mind, because my to-do list lately is filled with trying to find times and dates when people I need to meet with are all available. Which sometimes feels like herding cats. Throw out five dates and times and you finally find one that works for almost everyone—and then the last one says, "Unavailable." Back to the drawing board. In the past week alone, I've had to organize: 

 

• A Zoom meeting about a family trust with my wife, two brothers, sister-in-law, nephew and daughter in three different time zones. 

 

• A Zoom meeting about my Pentatonic Press business with a woman in Michigan and another in Hong Kong (with a 15-hour time difference).

 

• A Zoom meeting with 10 Orff colleagues in three time zones to discuss some disturbing conflicts with the national Board of Trustees (who it is now hard to trust!).

 

• A Zoom Orff Course Board meeting with our 7 Board Member to discuss next summer's Orff training. 

 

• A date that the 9 men in the Men’s Group are available for a December Holiday dinner. 

 

• In our upcoming trip to Portland caring for our grandchildren Zadie and Malik, a summary of their volleyball schedule, soccer schedule, a time for me to come and sing with Malik’s class, a time for me to sing in a college friend’s grandkids’ school, a time to visit nearby nephew Ian.

 

•Then possible lunches and dinners with some 10 people we know in Washington in our post-Portland travels.

 

• A dinner and jam session with my non-working Pentatonics Jazz Band that hasn’t been in the same room together for well over a year! The five of us finally found a time— a miracle!

• Classes with the 8^th graders at a local school—particularly maddening because it’s on a 6-day rotation!! Every Tuesday morning? Fine. But going down that labyrinth of when it’s a red day and a purple day is harder than finding the Minotaur in the ancient Greek maze. 

 

Get the idea? The hours spent looking at my phone calendar trying to piece it all together is just extraordinary. So the punch line for all you working folks? Retirement is exhausting!

 

And I love it.