friendlings

I was obsessing with retirement through much of February because (1) approaching birthday (2) colleague on Big Project retiring (3) my uncertainty about what happens with Big Project when i retire. Not that it won't happen without me, but more assumptions that i will be there.

I took Friday through Tuesday off, partly as a birthday, partly to practice for retirement.  I don't know when i will retire. I've decided i don't need to really think about decisions until the end of this year and that's if i want to give very graceful notice. Things i am considering though are how well i am ding at work and how well i can manage myself without the big stick of work expectations hanging over me.

This long plus weekend was less than ideal in some ways. In ways it went well, i got outside on the two nice days and made significant progress in the north end of the garden plot. I cleaned most of that end up last year, held back stilt grass. It's now very mulched between the rows and some greens planted. I also set some time aside for birthday celebrations - Friday night with family, Sunday brunch with a friend.

But, broadly a good bit of the time was reading or sitting and poking at my digital stuff. My todo list is in worse shape now. My gardening data is a little better off: after making something complex, i turned around and simplified it so there is a prayer i can keep up. I didn't make progress on any of the miscellaneous to dos cluttering (like installing the new rain gauge). I shopped for new things to do, like some raised beds with my Dad's birthday gift to me that will then have some feijoas (pineapple guava, an evergreen to screen the heat pump compressor and all the power boxes on the wall) and a yuzu in it. Christine has bought a smart telescope for us, which will be very fun because it has an equatorial tracking mode that looks very easy and will make using it in our back yard easy. Watching people do astrophotography on Tokyo rooftops was amazing; our skies are reasonably dark: Bortle 4, "rural suburban transition" which one of the Dutch astrophotographers described as what he would travel to get.

In really good news, Bruno asked to come out of his room a few times in the evening and all of us sat in the living room together in the evening. Marlowe was indignant, but there were long peaceful stretches.  Bruno and Carrie are getting more used to each other: Carrie is still excited to see Bruno, but settles. Bruno relaxes around a relaxed Carrie.  Did have a bad pee event on the couch on my proper birthday, and i think the foam might still be drying out. Piffle.

Back to retirement thoughts: i have lots of vacation banked. I need to practice setting intentions and following through without work acting as the structure and the excuse for not doing things. Plants offer a touch of motivation as they at least have certain unstoppable issues, and the scion wood i bought to graft on the crepe myrtle and the fig is waiting for me in the fridge.

Glad i showed myself i could follow through and -- over the past week and a half -- did get grass seed down in orchard in time for rains and warmth to help get it started. Pruned the fig and blue berries, pruned two apples and have attempted training some branches (probably using inappropriate materials).  Two apple trees and the persimmon remain, well, and the elderberries but the elderberries have leafed out and they grow like weeds.

Then had 36 hours of executive function vacation.

I continue to fear whether i am productive enough, competent enough at work, which yes, evidence says yes i am, but plenty of evidence that people who seem competent and productive and critical to understanding things get laid off. On the other hand, no big layoffs seem promising. The fear makes me look closely at retiring sooner rather than later: two years and a month and a few more days is the earliest i could sensibly retire and receive what appears to be a reasonable health care benefit from my employer.

So part of my mind is saying: just hang on and then .... what.

Admittedly, part of my mind remains amazed that all the economic engines continues as they have for decades. Climate forecasts for 2030 made when i was in college were missing -- as the scientists noted then -- factors that would offset the warming the models predicted. Which was pretty dire. And peoples around the globe have made efforts to slow our impact, and the models refined and we found -- for example -- the ocean had even more capacity to be a heat sink.  Nonetheless, I suspect though that i will always feel a distrust of planning for the future: particularly  trusting investment income as a stable foundation.

Another part of my mind makes a loud echoing "tick" when i take my morning and evening pills and i feel the time pass. I didn't contact any family members, haven't done anything to include myself in a community that takes care of each other. Yesterday i read the yoga center in town is shutting its doors (and selling its property to be redeveloped). I know the people who make the community there, who i felt might be local community i could connect with, aren't going away, but the locus of an intention has dissolved.

I see something that i think would trigger Christine's elephants. I know she is working on her elephants, i see her improving coping skills increasing capacity. I watch the news of more anti-trans efforts come in from Erin in the Morning and can't imagine the day to day toll that puts on Christine. And i know that the anti-immigrant, racist, anti-gay, anti-women energy is there, too.

I now i can do that thing, have grief and worry and frustration and still hold in my heart the beauty of the early Crocus tommasinianus and Iris reticulata and anticipation of a Chickasaw plum (Prunus angustifolia) covered with flowers. I also appreciate my colleagues, my friends here, and my friends across the country.

May we all find the capacity to hold our personal grief and our global worries at the same time as appreciation and gratitude, that we find joy as we also open ourselves to witness others suffering and have compassion for all living things. Maybe not stilt grass in North Carolina. Nope, not sure i can find compassion for that plant. It's always something.