Blog #2: Bookends

BLOG #2: BOOKENDS

All writers want to be read. It’s the nature of the craft. But there’s also a risk in putting one’s words down on paper. And so, gentle reader, I invite you to engage gently. And while I place upon you no obligations to read or comment, if you do choose to respond (one does want to know that one’s readers are reading), please do so with pithy, witty comments or curious questions, and if you take issue with my postings, let’s continue the conversation offline (FB or email or over coffee).

Here’s the first of my ramblings and observations of my first year of semi-retirement.

BOOKENDS

Many of life’s events—or my life events anyway-- are bookended. You know what I mean: those two sturdy  things that anchor a row of books. They could be as simple as a brick at each end of the row or as elaborate as quality marble carvings. Physical bookends can harness books; idea, or life,  bookends can harness emotions and memories.

Recently, two unrelated sets of life bookends made themselves known to me: retiring from SAIT after some 26 years and driving to Estevan, Saskatchewan, after some 38 years. Unrelated from each other but not to retiring.

SAIT:

Think of the left-hand bookend (as you view a row of books) as the opening bookend and the right-hand bookend as the closing bookend.

The ending, or right-hand, bookend was leaving SAIT June 21. Possibly the biggest financial mistake I’ll ever make, but certainly the best decision on a physical and emotional level. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel that last day. Weird just doesn’t cut it as a description, and yet “weird” is the best I can do. I had hoped I wouldn’t get sentimental and mushy (I didn’t); I had hoped I’d feel as though I was watching from the sidelines as this part of my life gently closed and another part gently opened (it did). But as I walked down the 50-some steps to the parkade, I couldn’t help reflect on what, for me, seemed to be the opening,  left-hand, bookend.

Some 48 years ago, at the tender age of 16, clutching a hope that the O-level exams I’d just written would produce decent and useful results (they did), I sauntered out of my high school and off to a future that was sort-of mapped out. Reminiscing about that long-ago last day of fifth form (and no proms in those days) . . . I remember my friends and form-mates weeping in the washrooms because they had suddenly realized it was all real, they were about to be launched on the real world of paid work or college until marriage and children, and things might not be all they were cracked up to be.  

Now, I have to tell you that I did not like high school. Introverts (especially shy introverts) shouldn’t be required to attend traditional high schools. It’s not good for us. I was happy to get out of there. I do remember a feeling of pure joy as, wearing my dorky school uniform for the last time, I swung around by the bicycle sheds and exited the campus for the last time. I also remember that sinking feeling that things were really going to change and I was on the first step of a whole new something. First stop: a summer retail job at British Home Stores in Stockport (and this before the days of tills doing all the work and calculating the change required) to put together some money for my training. Second stop: a two-year apprenticeship as a horse trainer, stable manager, and teacher of riding.

Which worked for a while. The sort-of mapped out future that is. Somewhere along the way,  things took a seemingly whimsical turn,  and I ended up going to college, working for the Manchester Fire Service and then working in Montreal and then Calgary. . . and university and SAIT.

And so back to that brand-new and very shiny right-hand bookend: Retirement. Well, in my case, semi-retirement because I’m unlikely to be a very successful fully-retired person.

As the late, great Stuart McLean was wont to say when he launched his latest Dave and Morley story, “What could possibly go wrong?” Ask me in a year.

Retirement is a new state of being. That familiar feeling of pure joy that I was taking a big first step to a different  new something and that sinking feeling of, “What the heck have I done?” Ask me in a year, two years, five years, twenty years. I may have moved out of the first stage of retirement (vacation mode) to a second or third stage (what’s my value?).

Estevan:

A second set of bookends made themselves known to me just last week as I was motoring back from Estevan, Saskatchewan (12 hours with stops). Fast two-lane highway most of the way, flat landscape, little traffic, pretty country so different from driving in B.C.’s mountains, plenty of time to get fed up of the same three CDs, plenty of time to learn most of the words as I offered my version of harmony, plenty of time for my mind to do what it does best when there’s a gap to be filled: wander.

Wander it did . . . back some 38 years to the first time I’d gone to Estevan as a young woman, a recent immigrant, new resident of Alberta, wondering what the heck I was doing by myself on the other side of the world, planning a future. I’d gone then to visit a friend who was a new wife and new mum. Thirty-eight years later I was there to provide company as she moved through the grieving process for a son.  The starting, left-hand bookend marked the start of new lives for both of us. The ending, right-hand bookend also marked the start of a new life for both of us because we are both finding our way as new retirees.

Rabbit Holes:

But, there’s one thing I’ve discovered through bookends: rabbit holes.

Not the Bugs Bunny sort of rabbit holes but the Alice-in-Wonderland sort of rabbit holes. I have a tendency to let my curiosity lead me to jumping down rabbit holes. I find plenty of them. I usually come out unscathed. It’s always interesting.

And so. . . off down some rabbit holes I go. See you in a bit when I have some adventures to share.

Cheers, Chris J