True Retirement

Beginning by reading Walden as an impressionable teen and continuing into my college investigation of yoga and Zen, I began to organize my life hoping to find “the peace that passeth all understanding.” 50 years later, I think it has finally arrived. 

 

It’s the end of our first day of actual biking through the lovely Dordogne Region countryside. We arrived at a hotel with a lovely (but too cold!) pool, a wandering cat, a couple of friendly ponies and a countryside quiet that has entered every cell of my body. One of those rare moments where the inside and the outside are in perfect equilibrium. The temperature neither demands bundling up from the cold nor seeking relief from the heat. The silence is pure, not a single human sound or passing car or chainsaw, just the gentle murmur of the water in the pool, a quiet whoosh from a small breeze and the punctuations of birds far and near. 

 

My body knows no pain, demands no attention, my mind is stilled, my heart is overflowing with the blessing of tranquility. There is no driving desire to possess this, to make it last forever, to change my life. And yet I can’t help but think: What if I truly retired? Just spent my days wrapped in this leisure and quiet? Get off of Facebook, check e-mail once a week or once a month. Stop watching Warriors' games or caring if they win. Hand over my Pentatonic Press to someone else, get off of the two Boards I'm President of, give up directing the summer Orff Course. Move to France and get a piano brought in, build a little library of books. Keep writing not to convince anyone of a single thing but just to praise and notice and use words as envoys of blessings. Stop trying to heal or change this hopelessly broken world, stop feeling the outrage and the powerlessness. Let go of my need to incessantly speak out against the insanity and cruelty and horrible ignorance of it all. 

 

What would it be like to accept that I’ve done what I could? It was so far from enough, but hopefully brought little sparks of joy and happiness to others here and there and perhaps that’s all I should have expected. What might it be like to retire as they have done in India, fully leave one’s work wholly behind and just go off into the woods (or the French country estate) and savor each and every minute of my remaining time? To stop moving around so much? To let go the long documenting of my life and give away the books and records and workshop notes and basement full of saved nostalgia. To relinquish my memberships to the various groups and (gasp!), stop going to and giving Orff workshops. Just me and the cat and the ponies and the trees and the quiet and the pool (maybe get it heated?). Just wondering.

 

At the moment, it’s a most delicious and appealing thought.