• Category Archives Retirement

  • In Spite of the Evidence on the Ground, the Sky Says It’s Spring

    Posted on by Charles 2 Comments

    Spring                                                                 Bloodroot Moon

    I’m beginning to wonder whether I misnamed this moon.  Not sure the bloodroot’s gonna bloom before it wanes.  16 degrees out now, headed down to 2 tonight.  Average daily high now 40 degrees.  But, in terms of astronomical events today is the day we shift past the  the celestial mid-point and the celestial equator. (see illustration)

    That makes spring the formal designation.  Meteorological spring began on March 1st, but I follow the stars as does the Great Wheel.  The Vernal Equinox has a long tradition as not only the start of spring, but of the new year.  It lost its spot as the New Year in 18th century England, 1752 to be exact, when Lady Day, March 25th (a fixed date to celebrate the coming of spring and the new year and the feast of the annunciation), lost its New Year’s Day status to January 1st as the Gregorian calendar reforms began.

    Today neither meteorological spring nor astronomical spring puts us in that season.  The weather is not co-operating with the calendar in either instance.  There’s a lesson here.  Rules, no matter how precise, or how ancient, no matter how usually reliable or hoaried with veneration, can never overcome, as the military says, the facts on the ground.

    The lesson of the Great Wheel will, however, grind its way toward truth.  At some point the winds will shift.  The cold air will retreat back to the North Pole.  The snow will melt and the grass will green, flowers bloom and children ride their bikes in the streets.

    Even though today doesn’t shout out verdant or shorts and t-shirts the vitality of Mother Earth is only delayed, not denied.  When we use the seasons as a metaphor for human life, we can imagine that we have passed the spring time of our lives.  This is not so.  Our bodies, yes, they continue on, hammered by entropy, drawn back toward the earth by the gravity of our years, but our soul, or whatever that mysterious piece of us is that hovers in and around that body, renews itself over and over.

    Take down a new book.  Pick up a hammer, or a carving tool, or lines of computer code.  Perhaps a paint brush or a blank page.  Visit the grandkids or an old friend or make a new friend.  The sparks of love and creativity in our lives can rejuvenate us over and over again, turning a winter, even one that seems determined to stay too long, into a springtime.  Those seeds you planted when you were twenty, but forgot to water?  Remember them.  This is their season.  Wake them up.


    Aging Great Wheel Retirement Third Phase 📎and tagged

  • Botox

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                                                              Bloodroot Moon

    Great line in a note from Tom Byfield, longtime docent at the MIA, recently resigned.  He writes:  For many years being a docent was the Botox I needed to ease my way into old age feeling good about myself.  This is third phase thinking, considering this next, long portion of our lives and deciding what’s necessary to keep feeling good.

    We all need some reconstructive surgery as we move away from life’s second phase, the one of work/career and family.  That is, we have to reshape, reconfigure our presence in the world.  This is different, in my mind at least, from reinventing yourself.  Not sure I’d want to do that. Not sure I could do that. But discovering new parts of myself or neglected parts that could blossom with sufficient attention, now that’s important.  And doable.

    Another way to think about this is that the first two phases of life, education and career/family are instrumental.  We see ourselves as in training for something to do, then doing it, often with a spouse and children.  Much of the angst of the first two phases of life comes in the tension between the (necessary) instrumental view of our self and the Self aching to discover its true purpose.  The lucky ones match the instrumental with Self discovery, but most aren’t so lucky.

    In the third phase of life though the instrumental drops away and the Self emerges, perhaps as out of a cocoon, with wings and the ability to fly.  After all those years of crawling along the ground.  Wow.  But, it turns out, flying is scary and leaving the ground behind also means leaving behind a lifetime of habits and learnings for the unknown.  It’s not surprising that so many fail to even spread their wings during the third phase.

    We humans often hold close pain in preference to change, being familiar with the outline and shape of our misery while ignorant of the other.  We fear those things we do not know and this is wise.  It lends that side note of caution that often keeps us safe.  But, it turns out, that same side note can keep us from growing, from spreading those new wings and heading off into the morning.

    So this is a message of encouragement if you’re stuck right now, hanging on to the job, the career, the skills that made you successful.  They’re not you; they’re things you learned.  Now you have an opportunity to learn some more.  I hope you take the chance.  Crawl out of that chrysalis and find out what life has to offer today.

     

     


    Aging Retirement Third Phase 📎and tagged

  • Enough is Enough

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                                                            Moon of the Winter Solstice

    With Kate fully retired and our income coming now from Social Security, my pension and our IRA 2013 will be the first year fully in the Third Phase.  This both changes everything and nothing.  Everything in that our forward scan has to take into account not only personal and marital growth, but the inevitable physical decline.  Already the markers of the latter have made themselves known.  Nothing in that none of this is a surprise nor does it impact, at least so far, our capacity to continue creative, full lives.

    Money is not exactly tighter, but our flexibility has grown more constricted.  That is, we have sufficient assets and income flow for our needs; but, since they have to be managed as resources for an indeterminate amount of time, we can no longer flush out spare pots of cash for sudden trips or splurges.  This is a bit of a surprise. This mild surprise lies over against the relief and gratification of having enough.  Enough is enough.

    In return for somewhat less fiscal flexibility though we have very flexible time.  Kate can focus on sewing, quilting, the grand kids, reading, cooking.  We can both spend time on the garden and the bee hives.  I can spend more time reading, writing, learning Latin, learning art history and going to museums.  The trade off is more than worth it.

    So, what questions arise for the third phase given these realities?  I’m not sure right now, but I’m open to suggestions.


    Retirement Third Phase

  • A Year Ago

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                                                              Fallowturn Moon

     

    Fall Waning Autumn Moon

    58 nautical miles south of Ft. Lauderdale, headed for Cuba and the strait between Cuba and Hispanola. Today was a quiet, uneventful day thanks to the high winds, including tornadoes, that struck the Everglades…

    The promenade deck, our deck, has had few people on it, so I did some exercise tonight. Tomorrow and the next day are at sea as we make our way 1200 miles south to Santa Marta, Colombia. Santa Marta made Wired magazine last month as the site of an international coffee tasting competition. It is where Simon Bolivar died and was buried. We’ll find out more about in a couple of days.

    With Santa Marta the South American portion of our journey gets underway, not to end until we leave the Rio Airport the day before Thanksgiving.

    Fall Waning Autumn Moon  October 20th  10 am

    A warm morning, sitting on the deck chair, watching Cuba roll by to the south/ Clumps of trees, sandy beaches and a few antenna installations mark this place, a testimony ot the overhang of the cold war. If it were not communist, this ship would stop in Havanna. Odd and more alluring as a result, the island seems a forbidden oasis of, what? Egalitarian socialism? Since we’re passing along its length, it will be in view a good while.

    We have come approximately 300 nautical miles from Ft. Lauderdale’s Port Everglade. The night, a calm one, unlike the night before, lent itself to a gentle rocking and good sleeping. I checked the national hurricane center and there are no storms of consequence in the western Caribbean Sea.


    Family Retirement Third Phase Travel

  • A Year Ago

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                                           Fallowturn Moon

    Just a year ago:

    Fall Waning Autumn Moon Sunday, October 16th, 2011

    Somewhere south of New York City in the Atlantic.

    We traveled on the earth by taxi and town car; we traveled in the air by plane; we now move across the ocean. That’s earth, air and water and each mode of transportation has fire as a critical element of its engine. Earth, air, water and fire. We’ve touched them all in this journey and we’ve only begun.

    Our flight got started an hour late due to air traffic control issues in Newark. As a result, Kate and I walked through an empty dock and became the last two people to board. The Holland America folks seemed relieved we had arrived.


    Retirement Third Phase

  • Country Club Living

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                                                     Harvest Moon

    Just back from Golden Valley Country Club.  Not my usual haunt.  This was a luncheon put on by our financial manager, RJ Devick et al.  Interesting presentation by a guy from JP Morgan saying that the economic outlook has good spots:  corporate profits, medium spots:  growth and jobs and medium to weak but improving:  housing.  He foresees continued growth and a genuine wrestling with the country’s financial situation after the election.  The economy has improved every year under Obama’s administration and the deficit has shrunk.

    Also, a presentation on metabolic medicine by a very sharp woman doc.  Will probably be taking some of her recommendations by mouth.

    Both of these presentations were worthwhile but neither the setting nor the crowd were mine.  A lot of nervous retirees focused on the bad in the economy and the bad in their health.  Good way to generate gloom.  Bah, humbug.


    Health Retirement Third Phase

  • Medicine

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lugnasa                                                     Garlic Planting Moon

    Back from my pre-op physical for hernia surgery.  Questions, palpitations, blood pressure, blood and ekg.  Looks like I’m cleared to go.

    (Hippocrates Teaching)

    Having someone cut on my body, especially paying somebody to cut on my body, is not at the top of my list of things to do.  Still, needs to be done.  So.

    The whole medical system works well for those of us who have decent insurance and buy into the Western model of care and treatment.  But, even for us, it is cumbersome, overly complicated and very, very far from transparent.

    Still.  Having competent docs and hospitals does make me feel much more secure as I age, particularly if I lay Minnesota health care over against, say, Indiana.  We’re in a sweet spot here when it comes to medicine and I’m grateful for that.

     


    Health Retirement Third Phase

  • Good Enough

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lugnasa                                                                    Hiroshima Moon

    When Kate and I visited our money in July, our financial planner, R.J. Devick, made an interesting observation.  Responding to the deluge of financial information–there are so many sources newsletters, private websites, newspapers, books, information services for financial professionals–he decided to have just four sources on which he relied, to the exclusion of the others.  I don’t recall the specific four, but they were high quality one private, one newspaper, one financial analysis group and something else.

    He said he realized he could spend all his time reading and come away more confused.  Probably so.  There is, of course, a need, and I’m sure he does this, to check the continuing reliability of your sources, but overall this was an early information management strategy. Pare down your resources, make sure they’re high quality, then rely on them.

    This struck me when Kate told me about seeing the quilt display at the MIA.  One of the artists dyed their own wool in slight gradations of hue in the same color, then used those variations as the design element in her quilts.  I asked Kate if she had any interest in learning to dye and she said no, quilting and piecing were what interested her.

    Kate’s made a decision not unlike R.J.’s, an intentional choice to limit her range of interest in the service of getting higher and higher quality out of her work.  It’s a strategy some of the most creative folks apply, going back to the same well over and over again, though with infinite variation in treatment.

    It may see obvious to you, probably does, but to me this is anathema.  And probably to my detriment.  I’ve written before about the valedictory life, the kind of life lived by valedictorians.  Once in awhile I check up on research about this topic because I was a valedictorian in the long ago faraway.  Mostly valedictorians don’t become famous experts, great writers or over achieving corporate climbers.

    Why?  Because to be a valedictorian, you have to pay similar attention to all the classes that you take.  Or, at the least, in those classes that don’t come easiest, you still have exert enough effort to get an A or 4.0.  Apparently that style continues throughout life for most valedictorians.  That means we don’t achieve the kind of focus that designs the first computer, tracks down the most efficient way to manage information, builds the deep knowledge to become an artisan in cloth or paint.

    Nope, we’re happily reading Scientific American, being a docent at a museum, writing a novel, translating Latin, putting in a vegetable and flower garden, doing all of these things at a reasonably high level but not high enough to stand out.  This is a hard life to accept, in one way, when achievement has been important, but it tends to not be the type of world beater achievement others expected.  On the other hand it meshes pretty well with the good enough life.  Good enough.


    Art and Culture Family Memories Retirement Translating Metamorphoses Writing

  • An Annual Visit to our Money

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer                                                                 Hiroshima Moon

    Back from visiting our money at Bond and Devick.  Turns out the corpus breathes.  RJ Devick, the owner now of a firm started by Kate’s friend, Penny Bond, is a sharp guy with a keen understanding of finance and politics, a necessary union of skills.

    We have our money in a largely conservative portfolio, one aimed at doing a little better when the market goes up and not so bad when the market goes down.  We’re trying to stay within 4% as our drawdown, so that plus pension (mine) and social security (both of us) represents our income stream.   We have some savings outside of the IRA, but the amount is small compared to the IRA.

    Managing this money towards our retirement has required and requires our mutual attention.  We got a lot better at all of this about ten years ago, when we had a rude, unpleasant episode with a pre-collapse (of the US economy) debt load.  The message got through however and now we are fine in retirement.  Not fat, but not needy either.

    Our situation is so much more fortunate than many of our contemporaries who will head into the post-retirement world with little savings.


    Family Retirement Third Phase

  • 49 Years of Service

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer                                                  Under the Lily Moon

    Yesterday Kate worked her last shift, finishing off a career that began as a scrub tech in Des Moines in 1963.  That’s 49 years.

    Tomorrow she leaves at noon for her high school reunion in Nevada, Iowa.  Her 50th.  (That’s a long a on the first one in Nevada, for those of you uninitiated.)

    And, perhaps the greatest irony, today comes the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Obama Healthcare legislation.  Kate’s a staunch supporter of universal health care.

    She’s been right and ahead of her time on many, many issues in medicine.  She’s right on this one, too.

    (this picture taken on the first day after Kate left full-time work behind.  About three years ago or so.  She knows where she is.)


    Aging Family Retirement