200 Cents
Has anyone ever tried to coax you to speak up with the offer of a penny for your thoughts? I imagine all of us have been so encouraged at one time or another, and the longer we’ve lived the value of those pennies we shared might actually amount to something. In my case, I’ve been offering my thought pennies, unsolicited I might add, for the past two years via this weekly BLOG. What began as a creative lark turned into a weekly exercise in thinking out loud, getting things off my chest, or as one of my reader’s described it, scratching my itches. Whether this outpouring of words fell on receptive or deaf ears, to me they were ruminations from a life now in its’ eighth decade, hence the title of the website in which they now find a home: Twilight Reflections. I am grateful to my dear wife and son for encouraging me to do this and helping me set up the online apparatus to give it both accessibility and permanence. Yet has all this writing, all of these essays—now 100 in number—been worth anything? Well, if each of these enscribed thoughts was, in essence, my $.02 worth on the subjects addressed, then the entire body of work could be valued at $2.00. Not much, I’ll admit, but at least it serves as a good title to this last of my weekly BLOG postings.
As I look back on this weekly discipline I took on in January, 2021, three questions come to mind that I’d like to share with you.
What was I thinking?
I guess we all approach retirement with particular dreams of how we hope to recapture, spend, or waste our time. Since handing in my keys and walking out the front door of the school I had been directing since 2008, I have found free time to be both a blessing and a curse. Not being accustomed to sleeping in, laying around, or vegging out in front of a TV without an onslaught of guilt, the bounty of unstructured time I now had on my hands was daunting. It was both new and, I might confess, frightening. Educators have a particular routine to their days and rhythm to their yearly calendars. For me it involved getting up at 5:15, arriving at school by 7:00 each morning, and for the next nine hours or so, commiserating with colleagues, students and parents in planned and spontaneous meetings, teaching classes, leading assemblies, writing regular missives, planning schedules, taking care of internal and external PR, and cheering on students in as many of their competitions and performances as I could fit into my schedule. Like many private school administrators, evenings often filled up with meetings, sports contests, plays and concerts, as well as the occasional emergency that sent one scurrying back to check on tripped alarms or double-check on storm-threatened facilities. Programs and projects regularly sent me back on the weekends, making it a very full calendar and a most meaningful way to spend one’s time.
And then it all came to an abrupt end. In my case, COVID’s onset so altered how school could proceed after March 2020-—with a shuttered facility, online-classes, and remote everything—that retirement became more a three-month slide into oblivion than a climactic farewell. And that may be why it took me so long to get back on the horse and try to push myself into doing anything reminiscent of my former life. But after eighteen months in which my wife and I gradually adjusted to being retired—sprinkled with some travel, lots of family and grandkids, and puttering around home and garden—-I realized that the future was no longer out there but staring me in the face. So why not try doing something along the lines of what I had been preoccupied for most of my adult life: communicating? Sermons, chapels, lectures, essays, lesson plans—these had been my meat and drink for more than 50 years. Could it be that the key to finding myself in this new chapter of life would be losing myself once again in these pursuits?
What have I learned?
While there is much wisdom in the old saying that we learn more through listening than speaking, a wealth of insight can be gained when we take risks, fight through the frustrations that come when we try to create something, and expose ourselves to the judgment of others. So, holding myself to a weekly essay output—my imaginative nod to the world of editorial columnists whom I so admire—has been as instructive as it has been humbling. Coming up with ideas upon which to reflect was not the problem. Any of us who keep an eye on current events or observe the steady flow of social and cultural trends that take turns enjoying their 30 seconds of fame; and whose soul-searchings unearth questions that both vex and trouble, should have no trouble lighting on topics from which evocative titles can be crafted. That’s easy. But sitting down to write something that anyone else would want to read—you know, a goldilocks piece that is short enough to keep interest while long enough to unpack some thoughtful nugget—now that’s work!
Essay writing entails more than just composing sentences that pass grammatical and comprehendible muster. I liken it to excavating those cerebral crevices wherein clever ideas hide, and dislodging a few that can be turned into words worthy of a thumbs up FB emoji, or that provoke a comment, critical or otherwise, from another human being. I’ll admit to feeling quite satisfied whenever one of these 100 efforts generated any feedback, and consternation when they didn’t. If poets, playwrights and novelists depend on a particular muse to give them inspiration, for me the impulse to write has been more an act of amuse-ment. And I suspect that many of my readers felt more bemused rather than uplifted or entertained in plowing through them.
What’s next?
Writing has forced me into creating daily and weekly time routines which have greatly enhanced my otherwise non-scheduled life. And that has been both good and worth continuing. As most of my friends know, I’m a bit of a type-A personality who enjoys system, timetables and yellow-tableted tasks to check-off in their completion. Twilight Reflections has forced me back into that kind of regimen in ordering how I spend each day or plan out each week. And I’ve discovered that I am more productive, and feel a bit better about myself, when my life is so regulated. So why stop?
If the one constant in this universe is change, and time continually moves us from then to when, the completion of this 100th essay seems a good moment to steer myself in a different direction. What about a writing project that is both longer in scope and different in tone? Like many people I’ve dreamt of writing the Great American Novel or Tony-winning play, and with a couple of these stillborn ideas in some form of construction, I hope to turn my time and mental energies to seeing them to completion (or giving up in the process). And if the publishing road turns out to be paved by more than good intentions, I might look into finding an audience for some of my stockpile of sermons, prayers, and lessons delivered to students and Sunday School classes over the years.
In the meantime, I plan on keeping this website open, assisting browsers by adding a topical index for easier navigation. I’m quite certain I’ll be moved to add more of my 2 cents in new essays during the weeks and months to come—just not on an every-week schedule. And whenever I do, I’ll be sure to post them on Facebook and send to those 100 or so on its mailing list. Thanks to all of you who have read one or more of these BLOGs, and to everyone who took the time to let me know, through words and symbols, what you thought of my efforts. It has given me much encouragement and confidence in sharing these reflections from the twilight years of my life—a life for which I trust the night is still young.
