How Will I Know?

It’s April 15th and we have 43 days of school left until Summer. How are we already beginning the fourth quarter of the school year?

While I’ve always enjoyed the cycle of school years throughout my life, I’m also wondering if time will slow down a bit in retirement, when I’m not marking its passage by days off, weeklong breaks, grading periods, and due dates. In retirement I imagine one day being very much like another. Not in a Groundhog Day kind of way, but in more of a what-plant-shall-I-grow-today sort of way.

But ask the average retired person how they like retirement and many will say they are busier than ever, or at least busier than they had expected to be. Or they might start listing the various activities they participate in, as if you’d asked them what they do in retirement, rather than who they are in retirement. Yet I’ve noticed that no one ever regrets having retired. 

How does a person know when it’s time to retire? It’s certainly more of a temptation when a spouse has gone out ahead of you, even if they are older. Watching a close colleague slog through the various tasks in preparation for her retirement this Spring is oddly tantalizing. Even when I’m feeling committed to at least one more year in my current position, if not also one more year after that.

When people ask me about retirement plans, and they are beginning to do so now and then, I just say I’m on a year to year basis at this point. As long as my school continues with its strong admin team, solid co-teachers, and the technology is not outpacing me, I’m good to keep going. Even though I wear reading glasses now, and sometimes fear for my safety while rounding corners in our overcrowded hallways.

My cautionary tale is Grandma Kathie’s reflection on her own decision to abruptly retire several years before she’d originally planned to: “We were leaving the theater with our friend group one Sunday afternoon, and I noticed that Burt (her husband) was lagging behind everyone else. I remember thinking to myself that those next three years I’d planned to work could be the best ones we have left together. And you know what? They absolutely were.”

I think maybe that’s how you know.

Babysitting in Bethesda

Yesterday, Molly babysat for seven mostly school-aged children, mostly cousins of each other, during the entire length of a family wedding. The eldest, a 7th grade neighbor boy, has a friend who joined the group because he’s in training to become a babysitter.

“He’ll be my assistant,” Molly stated confidently. 

The carload bound for Bethesda assembled across the street at 2:30pm. It consisted of the father, Pete, Evan, Evan’s friend, and six year old Flora who is counting down to her seventh birthday in several days. No doubt her birthday party will be next weekend’s big event!

“Have fun with your cousins,” I said, as Flora waved to me. Then added, “Take good care of Molly!” Flora giggled and smiled. Molly was out of earshot as she had dashed back into our house to grab Uno Attack. 

One pair of cousins is staying at an airbnb in Alcova Heights, the next neighborhood over from us. The other pair of cousins had travelled from Sweden to be here, and must be the ones staying at the airbnb in Bethesda. Three-year-old August was one of those cousins.

“He’s bound to be jet-lagged,” Molly had said, hopefully, when listing the group members to me earlier in the afternoon. The decision to have the cousins located in the Bethesda residence had everything to do with it being two blocks from the wedding venue, “in case of any meltdowns,“ she had added.

Things went more smoothly than one might have imagined, despite Molly’s guarded apprehension about young August. Shortly after 10:00pm, Molly’s victory text appeared on my phone.

“Pete just took off. I’m coming back in a little while with Kate because August (3yo) is anxious about his parents getting back to the airbnb, and he’s attached himself to me.”

It appears my daughter is not only a cat whisperer, but she’s also an august handler of small children when she needs to be.

Wild Kingdom

Surfaces bursting with potted plants line the far side of my enclosed front porch. Three wide open days lie ahead of me. Time to plant many of them, beginning with the wild ginger, the May apples, and the Virginia ragwort.

This year I also have a box full of 18’ high gate panels to build in some rabbit protection around my natives. So far I have not seen any rabbit damage to my woodland phlox or for that matter, anything else. This is puzzling given that we have oodles of rabbits in the neighborhood, but I have a couple of ideas about why they might be keeping their distance from us this Spring.

Several weeks ago, early in the morning, Molly saw an opossum scurrying from the back yard towards the side of the house where our raised beds reside. A week or so later Brian saw the same activity, also very early one morning. Both were convinced that what they saw was a great big opossum. A huge monster of an opossum, in fact. 

We came to believe that perhaps she was pregnant, and no one has seen her since. But the hole leading into the crawl space is where we believe she lives and perhaps is nesting. Research suggests that an opossum eats small mammals which could include mice, perhaps chipmunks, and can be a threat to newborn bunnies as well, 

Foxes have also been sighted in the neighborhood this Spring, so perhaps we are cycling away from rabbits for now. I welcome each and every fox, including their nocturnal screams while mating, until my tender natives grow tall and tough.

Sunshine Tag

On afternoons when I arrive home from school and relax in my favorite sun-drenched chair for a cup of freshly brewed coffee, two alert adolescent cats sit expectantly on the sofa arm nearby, or on the floor near my sock feet. They are waiting for their new favorite game.

When I pick up my phone, the sunlight reflects off of the glass and onto the wall behind me or the ceiling above my right shoulder. To them it’s Laser Tag, but instead of dodging the light, they attempt to catch it! Repeatedly. Forever amazed that it cannot be contained in their marshmallow paws.

Sometimes I angle my phone and create figure eight patterns on the floor that they pursue relentlessly. Or maybe I’ll hide the light inside one of the Swiss cheese holes of their carpet tower. I tire of these shenanigans long before they do. 

Their little brains desperately need the hunt, but this particular hunt does not bring them much success. So we end up playing some Stick Feather until all the jumping wears them out, at which point they flop into a sun spot on the carpet to snooze, with their conquered prey nearby. 

Changing the Narrative

This evening while at dinner with a couple of old friends on the occasion of the husband’s 66th birthday, the conversation turned to what our adult children are doing now. 

“Why doesn’t she sub at Arlington Tech? It’s so close to home,” he asked.

“Couldn’t he do some volunteering if he’s not looking for a job?” she wondered.

At first, I felt uncomfortable, knowing that these two friends are all about going and doing. In stark contrast to this, both our daughter and our son are at points in their lives where simply being is a shared joy for them. 

For the first time since they were toddler and baby together, neither one of them is in school, and we are giving them time to find their own paths.Time to breathe. And they are both happy! Not stressed, not anxious, not worried about what comes next - at least not outwardly so. 

There is no tension between us and them, especially since they willingly help out in little ways here and there around the house. It’s a joy to be with them at this moment in their lives, on the precipice of young adulthood.

As I tried to explain this to our friends, I could see the confusion cloud their faces, especially her face.

“How will he learn to assert his initiative if we are always planning his next move?” I asked. “He’s been much happier, more conversational and very present with us. And he no longer disappears into his room for hours at a time.”

Sometimes I do wonder if we are wise in this way of thinking, or simply becoming lazy and negligent in our parenting as we age. Is doing the enemy of being? Or is it the other way around? Time will tell. But also, what’s the rush? 

How Much Longer?

“Excuse me,” the man said, in his most plaintive tone, “I notice that the party of fourteen on the terrace just left. We requested terrace seating because we have two dogs with us. Do you know how long it will be?”

The Skyland dining room host mumbled something mostly inaudible, and promised to let him know when a table outside was available.

Next I heard a girl with the young family of five scrunched together on the sofa ask her mother, “What shall we do in the meantime?” I thought that was a very sophisticated sentence for her age, and she asked it so calmly, too. 

This is Opening Weekend at Skyland Lodge in Shenandoah National Park. We ventured up early this afternoon, Brian and I, to hike Limberlost Trail today and another easy hike, TBD, tomorrow morning.   

We are celebrating his six week post-op clearance for the lumbar laminectomy that has restored his ability to walk painlessly again. Hiking is one of his passions, and Shenandoah National Park is one of our happy places. 

It’s just hard to be truly happy when the dinner wait is one whole hour. But surely we are near the top of the list by now.

Spring Interlude

A Spring Break during which one must seek out the shade is a gift to gardeners. It means that tulips are blooming, and the parade of spring ephemerals has begun with Virginia bluebells leading off.

The first native plant sale of the season is underway, and I’m sitting on a shady bench behind the gazebo of Green Spring Gardens awaiting the arrival of a friend for walking and lunch to follow. My “finds” at the sale are safely tucked away in a car parked in shade, windows cracked open a couple of inches.

Oodles of Master Gardeners fill the flower beds, bent over at the waist with bottoms up in the air, doing spring clean-up, in-filling pansies, adding soil here and mulch there. Nannies and mothers with strollers are my midweek companions for the moment. 

Soon my friend will arrive. But for now I’m enjoying the cool breeze, the chattering of the birds, and the young boy who is toddling up and down the gentle ramp of the gazebo nearby.