Category: Life Changes

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Walking

There was a list in my head, when I contemplated leaving my job last spring, of things I knew I wanted to do, things that take more time.  I wanted to drink more tea.  That sounds ridiculous, I know.  Anyone can find the time to brew a cup of tea and drink it.  Except I never did.  And now I do.

I also wanted to walk more.  Walking is great exercise and an excellent alternative to, and break from, running.  But it takes much more time to get a workout equal to running by walking.  Now at least once or twice a week I go with David on his morning walk.  Yesterday we walked the snowmobile trail through the woods, where the first skims of ice are forming on puddles.

The night before I’d gone to the retirement party of a friend and colleague.  I saw many people there who I hadn’t seen since I left my job, and everyone wanted to know how my retirement is going.  “Well, I’m actually working a good bit,” I said, not able to call what my life is like now retirement.  I have several hours of work a week on various projects, and am considering taking on a fairly major commitment (more about that later).  But I’m also writing a novel, working on poems, reading, spending lots of time with family and friends, drinking tea and walking.  And stopping to admire the patterns of oak leaves locked under cross-hatched ice.

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Yes and No

David and I hiked to Flat Mountain Pond on Sunday, with Betsy and Cathy.  It was a lovely hike, to a long, remote pond in the White Mountains, made more delightful by the chance to spend time with our friends — they enjoy being active and outdoors, like we do, and they are also among the most intentional people we know.  They pay close attention to how they spend their time, where they’re putting their energy, how they’re living their lives, and make sure all of that is lining up with what they really want.  As a couple who “dropped out” for a year and traveled across the country, they were among my most enthusiastically supportive friends when I told them, over a year ago, that I was going to be leaving my job at the Coalition.  They thoroughly supported my willingness to try a new life.

Given how hectic our summer and fall has been, this was the first chance we’ve had to hike with Cathy and Betsy for over a year.  I was eager to talk with them about my ever-shifting ideas about how to best use my time, how to balance acceptance of consulting jobs I’m being offered with my desire to write, how to structure my days, how to figure out what exactly I’m doing.   It’s not that I expected them to have answers, but I knew they would understand the questions.

And coincidentally, I had just gotten an offer from Cathy’s sister Anne, who I know well from her work on violence against women at the national level, to represent her organization at a U.S. – Russia Civil Society Partnership Program meeting in Moscow in three weeks, taking part in the gender equity workgroup.  I’ve been to Russia twice to do training on domestic violence, and have planned programs for two delegations of Russians visiting New Hampshire, so I was an easy choice for Anne to approach, knowing she wouldn’t be able to get away and accept the invitation to participate herself.

But do I want to go to Russia in three weeks?  Do I want to get involved in what might be an ongoing project?  How much exactly do I want to work, and stay engaged in the movement to end violence against women?  Do I have the energy to spare that a quick trip to Russia will use up?  Do I really want to do this, or do I just not know how to say no?

“Work begets work,” was one piece of advice Betsy gave me.  And she also said she always asks herself, when considering whether to take on work for her own consulting business, “Is this going to help me get where I want to go?”  This was all bouncing around in my head on Sunday night when I went to hear Kay Ryan read her poetry in Concord.  In talking about coming to know that she wanted to be a poet, she said it came down to asking herself, “Do I like it?”

The short story in all this is that I said yes, and will be going to Russia in a few weeks. The longer story is that David and I are both deeply involved in helping each other sort out what exactly we want to be doing with our lives, now that the huge structure of demanding jobs isn’t dictating the basic work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, laundry, grocery shop, sleep, work, eat, sleep over and over again schedule.  What we’ve come to affirm is that we’re in a mode of figuring it out.  Saying yes to something for this year doesn’t mean I would say yes to the same thing next year.  Or I may be out there looking for more opportunities like this, rather than waiting for them to come my way. Is this taking me where I want to go.  Do I like this?

There is no Grace and David Four Months Into Having Left Their Jobs Rule Book.  We’re making it up as we go along, paying attention, keeping track, staying present, asking the right questions.  And having fun, like in the photo above.  That was part of Sunday too.

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Right Now, A Year Ago

For those of you who haven’t read every word of this blog, including the page The Premise Is Grace, here’s a recap.  My original idea was to write a blog about the succession planning process, right from the middle of it.  So in the spring of 2010, just before I announced my planned departure from my job in June of 2011, I started writing posts for a blog, planning to begin making them public after my retirement as Executive Director of the Coalition was announced.

I wrote, but I didn’t post.  I discussed what I was doing with some Coalition Director friends, and they agreed with my hesitation — though I was writing mostly from my own experiences, what I was writing revealed too much about other people’s reactions.  My friends thought publishing the blog posts a year after they’d been written, with an update on what I was experiencing in my year post-Coalition, would be interesting (to them, especially, to know what it was like to not be working so damn hard) and respectful enough of the people I was writing about.

So I kept writing, though less and less frequently, and then finally just stopped.  Making most of what I was writing public wasn’t going to work no matter when I posted it.  But there are posts on that still-private blog that are worth looking back at, as a counter to what I’m experiencing now.  The short story of what I’m experiencing now is a great sense of relief and freedom.  I stepped off an edge, and there is plenty of ground under my feet.

From October 6, 2010:  I’m at a meeting of the Coalition’s member programs and Peggy is providing an update on the search process.  The amount of energy that’s going into finding my replacement makes me feel guilty.  We have so much other work to do!  Now there’s this whole transition process on everybody’s plate.  Is this the best way to be doing this?  Sue J. asked me last week, when we saw each other in Chicago, did a year’s notice feel too short or too long?  I think the board, staff and member program directors would say, “Not enough time!.”  It’s feeling too long to me.  I’m sitting in the middle of a process that involves me letting go of a huge part of my life, convincing everyone else it’s okay to let go of me, and all of us stepping together off the edge, trusting there will be someplace to put our feet.  I’m feeling so ready to take that step.  And yet, right now, here I am, in it.

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Yom Kippur, Again

I just reread my Yom Kippur post from last year, which told a story from two years past on Yom Kippur.   And I recently reread Adrienne’s blog post from last Yom Kippur.  Looking back is in the spirit of this solemn day, when we think about our transgressions, contemplate atonement and forgiveness, and resolve to be as good as we can be, while loving ourselves even in our imperfection, in the year to come.

Today at services, I could feel Eric sitting beside me.  He is so present to me still, and no more so than on days that are rich with all he brought into my life — a spiritual practice that has stayed deeply meaningful for me, with rituals and traditions that keep me connected to friends and family and him.

In a couple of hours, David and I will go over to Mark and Andi’s to continue a tradition we’ve started since Eric died.  In the years before Eric’s death, we had started going back into Concord to attend the Memorial and Concluding Services for Yom Kippur.  In the midst of the thoughtful swoon that a day of fasting and reflection brings on, getting dressed again for services and driving back into Concord was a lot, but we’d come to count on the tradition.

The year after Eric died Adrienne and Sam and I planned to go back into Concord, after the break from the morning service, for the Memorial and Concluding Services.  Being part of the Memorial Service was particularly important to me.  But we didn’t make it.  I don’t remember exactly why but it was probably a combination of grief and exhaustion. We went to Mark and Andi’s and broke fast with them.  We didn’t make it back into Concord the following year either, and by the third Yom Kippur after Eric died, David was in my life and Laura had just died.

“I really want to go to Memorial Services, ” I said to Sam, who was home that year.  “But I really don’t want to go back into Concord to the Temple.”

“Do your own service,” Sam said, and we did.  I have a copy of the High Holy Days prayer book at home, because when I went to see the Rabbi after Eric died, and asked for his suggestions for helpful readings on the Jewish response to death and grief, he said he thought the Yom Kippur Memorial Service in the prayer book was as good as anything, and I took a copy home.  So three years ago I picked out readings and we created our own Memorial and Concluding Service with Mark and Andi.  And did it again last year.  And will do it again today.

The photo above is from the first Yom Kippur after Eric died, just about 5 months after.  The photo makes me think about all that’s changed in the five years, and six High Holy Day seasons since he’s been gone.  Mark and Andi and I visited his grave after this morning’s service, and told stories about our lives then and now that made us laugh.  Eric loves that — all of us laughing and loving and carrying on our rituals in whatever way keeps us connected to Judaism and to him.

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“Retirement” Passages

When people ask me how retirement is going, I respond that I haven’t “retired.”  I left my job of 30 years, with every intention of continuing to work.  The difference is that my work is now going to be more self-directed — writing, editing what I’ve already written, doing consulting work.  That’s the plan anyway.

But three months into this new journey, I’m not at all sure what I should be doing with myself from day to day.  I’m getting my manuscript ready for the publisher, which includes formatting the book, putting together a mailing list for people to receive a promotional flyer, and getting blurbs from other poets.  I’m writing a lot of poems but mostly not working on them.  I’ve started a novel and am reading a lot of novels to see if I can figure out how to get more than six pages of the one in my head down on paper, or onto the computer’s screen and thus hard drive.  I’m training for a half marathon in November which means running more, I’m slowly putting my garden to bed, I’m visiting with lots of family and friends, and I’m working on three consulting jobs.

Is this the creative life I imagined?  The storage pod is finally out of the driveway and David’s studio is done and he’s mostly moved in.  Yesterday he created the first of his art to come out of the studio — beautiful cards for friends who came for a multi-birthday dinner last night.  His creative life seems to be cranking into action.

I had lunch two weeks ago with a friend who’s a few months in front of me on the retirement path, though her path is more truly retirement. In an email exchange after our lunch, when I talked again about the anxiety that dogs me some days, she wrote back, “the most important thing that I have learned in the last few months is that this thing called retirement is a process.  Be gentle with yourself.”

Last Saturday we hiked with a friend who’s several years ahead of David and me on the full-on professional life “retirement” exit into a creative life path.  He talked to both of us about finding a creative community to support us in our new life.  “You don’t get many kudos for pursuing your creative art,” he said.  “It’s not like being at a job every day when people tell you what a good job you’re doing.”

And it’s not like I have a calendar with appointments for writing poetry, or working on my novel, or editing The Island Journal, a memoir I finished over two years ago and have done nothing with but type into my computer since.

So what am I going to do right now, on this wet and still Saturday morning?  Go for a run, maybe then I’ll be able to sit at my computer for a while and catch a glimpse of my new path.

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“Retirement” ADHD

Should I work on the poem I brought to YoPos last week?  Finish formatting my manuscript and get the list of people to mail the promotional flyer ready?  Oh, I’ll click this link in my Twitter feed and read a review of the de Kooning retrospective at MOMA. And here’s a new blog post in my Google Reader from that poet whose blog I found out wandering on the internet two nights ago, clicking on links in links in links until I had about 25 tabs open.  Wait, my computer is blipping at me.  Adrienne answered my g-chat about plans for next week.  I’ll g-chat with her while I get caught up on email.  I need to confirm three meetings and email the other panelists for the conference in November. And I need to start working on my presentations for the training in October.  Should I email Becky and Marie the awesome “blurb” I just got from Rosanna Warren for my book?  Did I ever get that check from Carol for the hotel room in DC?  And I need to sign the travel voucher for reimbursement for that Office on Violence Against Women meeting in August and FedEx it back.  Where’s the closest FedEx office?  Ah, the sun is fully out now, maybe I’ll go mow the law.  But wait, wasn’t I going to write this morning?  But first I’ll check FB and see if Adrienne has any new photos of Emilio posted.

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The New Life

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It’s still raining this morning, the third morning in a row I’ve sat on the porch with a veil of gray draping the yard, the pasture across the road, the tall maples and oaks around the cemetery that fills in the western horizon.  The horses don’t seem to care, and continue to forage in the field for whatever is left to eat among the yellow ragweed and purple thistle. The distant call of a loon hovers into the morning from the lake, across the busy state road hidden by trees, so the long wail cuts through the hum of wet tires on pavement.

I’m four days into figuring out this new life of mine, a life that isn’t tightly bound on all sides by time given over to a demanding job.  All the unexpected, and expected, events of this summer combined so that this is the first week I’ve had without appointments, plans, trips — all that’s kept me from seeing if I really can slow down and find a rhythm to my creative life.  I made pizza dough last night for dinner, and as I was kneading the ball of sticky, gooey flour and water threads into a stretchy mass that shone and rolled under the heels of my hands, the body memory of making bread and handling a yeast dough came back to me.  It’s been decades since I had time to make dough.

David’s boat, which he kept on Lake Winnepausauke when his children were young, was called The New Life.  When he moved into this house over two years ago, he hung the sign he’d made for the boat in the barn.  Now that his new studio in the barn is finished, with shelves and desk tops and a counter getting installed this week, the sign has moved.  It’s nailed onto the barn wall, over the wide double doors that face west.  It’s announcement of what is, every day, no matter the circumstances we find ourselves in, is so true.  This moment is always the new life, and in this life time is getting stretchy under my working hands and beginning to shine.

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What I Did Today

I cleaned up my old “ericgrace”email account.  I’ve hung on to the account Eric and I created more than a decade ago because of my attachment to the ericgrace tag, and when I switched to gmail, wanted that for my address, but of course it wasn’t available.  So today when I needed to open the account to get a friend’s address to email her about my manuscript, I finally admitted to myself that I don’t have an “ericgrace” life anymore, and that old account is so spammed out it’s mostly just annoying.  So, I made sure I had all the addresses I wanted from the old account, forwarded emails I’ve saved to my gmail account that tell stories I may want to get back to telling and the emails will be good reminders, if not good sources of some already-written work, scanned the 1,000 + emails that have come into that account since I last opened it (in early July) to find online accounts I needed to switch to my gmail account, and then did that.  This was not a glamorous creative-life task, though it was working on getting my manuscript ready for the publisher that led me to it.  This was cleaning up life details that have been ignored for too long.  But now that big box in my head that said “clean up and close your old email account” has a check next to it.  Good-bye “ericgrace.”  I still love you.

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Sunday Night Transformed

This is new.  Instead of the usual pre-week crank-up of Sunday evening, I’m relaxed.  I was relaxed last Sunday evening too, sitting on the darkened porch of my friends’ house on Squam Lake.  This evening I’m in the air-conditioned living room of Matt and Adrienne on Long Island.  I just finished making ratatouille with vegetables from my garden — the entire dish, other than the olive oil, from my own labor.  The cucumber salad is from my cucumbers and Adrienne’s.  Adrienne is nursing Emilio down for the night, the jasmine rice in coconut milk is cooking, and in a few minutes I’ll start the grill for the marinating salmon.

Earlier today we all did the Damon Runyan 5K in Yankee Stadium, a great event for a great cause.  The Damon Runyan Cancer Research Foundation raises money from the race, and the entire 5K takes place in Yankee Stadium, including running around the warning track twice (providing shots of yourself on the Jumbotron), up and down ramps and stairs and around concourses.  It’s incredibly fun.  Anne joined us and even Emilio was there, sleeping on Matt’s back as he walked with David.

And tomorrow we’re not heading back to work or to NH.  We’re spending the day with Emilio.  I am exactly where I want to be.

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David Baird Coursin, MD

David Baird Coursin, MD, loving husband of Elizabeth (Betty), father of David (Grace), Daniel Flynn (Kitty), Douglas, and Robb (deceased), father-in-law of Laura (deceased), Marti, and Laurie, and grandfather of Melia, Drew, Mackenzie, and Owen, passed away on July 22, with his family at his bedside. He was an extraordinary man, role model, and scholar.

Baird married the love of his life, Betty, while training as a pediatrician. They came to Lancaster to raise their family as Baird established the Pediatrics department and Research Institute at St. Joseph’s Hospital. His lifetime passions were family and the care and development of infants and children. He performed leading research of his generation on brain development, and published countless scholarly works. He traveled worldwide to advance child welfare and consult for the WHO, UN, NIH, and leading universities.

Baird loved being near the ocean whenever possible. The family cottage in Stone Harbor, NJ, provided a rejuvenating respite. He will be missed greatly and remembered always. His extraordinary life is summarized best in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one’s self; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived – this is to have succeeded.”

A private service was held in his memory.