Happy birthday Lisa! Fortunately, my little sister hasn’t passed me in age, and I hope to keep it that way. She is a pistol, that’s for sure.
Ever wonder what you’d do if you didn’t have to devote 40 or more hours per week to making a paycheck? Retirement is best defined as “no longer being forced to sell your time”. My brother is training to be a battlefield docent in Virginia – that’s really cool. We’ve got friends who volunteer their time for a variety of charities and community building activities.
I’ve found time to enjoy some creative outlets. For starters, writing blog posts that nobody reads. Fun for me and documents our adventures or what’s on my mind at the time. Kind of implies time to be thoughtful, because my nose isn’t to the grindstone. Isabel and I have both been teaching ourselves to play the guitar – never mind that we’ve owned the darn thing for 22 years. I left my banjo at Bill’s shop in Arizona – perhaps I’ll fetch it next trip and try teaching myself how to pick that thing. We took kite boarding lessons and if the daggum wind ever blows around here we’ll be out blasting around the bay having a heck of a time. Isabel became a yoga instructor and has been leading classes on the beach. I’m teaching myself how to make artisanal bread, which kind of scratches my itch for making craft beer. They’ve both got yeast in them, don’t they? My dad used to make bread for us and for church communion, and when I’m messing about in the galley it feels like he’s with me. It’s a good feeling.
That reminds me – need to go stir my sourdough starter. . .
Where was I? Oh yeah, finally having time to do lots of things we put off because we were trying to wring blood out of turnips all those years. We believed our work gave our lives meaning, and at the time it did, but there’s a heck of a lot more to life than work, or at least there better be.
Somehow, I recently ended up as the manager of the French Polynesia single sideband cruisers net. The former net manager and some other net controllers got into a big brewhaha and they all quit, just took their balls and went home which threatened the collapse of the entire enterprise. Since I failed to successfully mediate and diffuse the situation, I decided I’d try to rebuild without their help. Fortunately, the remaining net controllers stuck with me, we recruited some great new folks, and now we’ve got someone covering each day of the week. Tune in at 1800 UTC in the am, or 0400 UTC in the pm and declare an emergency and ask for help, or report being underway so we can follow your progress or tell us about your day and what’s up in your anchorage. We bring folks together, build community, and make new friends on the radio who we eventually meet. All good fun, and occasionally we help vessels in distress.
We’re no longer focused on turning the money crank. We’re focused on our own quality of life, physical, mental and emotional fitness, and how we can give back to our community. We find time for yoga, to paddle an SUP for an hour, to watch a sunset, to learn to navigate by the stars, to learn to play a new musical instrument, to improve our foreign language skills, to make delicious and healthful food, to appreciate the environment and creatures around us. A good sail is exhilarating, as is blasting around the bay on our kite board.
Every day at sunset we wonder where the day went, every Friday we wonder where the week went. For some reason we still seem to observe weekends differently from weekdays, even though there’s really no difference for us.
Life offers plenty of stimulation of all sorts including intellectual pursuits. We still work to improve our financial situation by paying careful attention to our investments and budget. Perhaps in a way we’re still working for a living, but we sure aren’t giving up 40+ hours per week.
The cruising life is good – we’re pretty darn self-sufficient, and we’re just soooo busy!
No comments:
Post a Comment