Retirement: Day 1

Today was like a smorgasbord of all the things I want to do for the rest of my life. But the biggest change actually was the absence of the anger that I have been carrying around for months now.

I woke up on my own around 7:00. I could see light in the window and it just felt like the right time to get up. I didn’t even bother to put on my watch. The excuse of needing to get to work was no longer there, so I went down to exercise.

Afterwards I did something that I have been intending to do for a long time. I meditated in a dark room with only the light of a candle for probably about 15 minutes.

By this time I had earned that cup of coffee I had with my Cheerios out on the deck. I digested the Washington Post along with breakfast. The birds provided the background music.

Then it was time to do some cooking for tomorrow night’s party. But this was one of those experiences that was different for me today. Instead of the frantic chopping with a deadline that often results in a horrible backache, today’s cooking was a totally new experience. I had decided to work to the degree that I could sitting at the counter instead of standing up on the stone floor – infinitely better for my back. While the chicken wings baked in their garlicky sauce of honey, soy sauce, catsup, and olive oil, I shaped miniature empanadas, crimping the edges of soft dough around a filling of seasoned beef fillet. It took quite a while, but it didn’t matter because there was no deadline.

Next was vanilla flan, basically a custard poured over brown sugar that caramelizes as it cooks. While the flan was in the oven, I mindfully chopped the many ingredients that go into ratatouille. It is such a lovely medley of vegetables – onions, garlic, eggplant, green squash, yellow squash, peppers, and tomatoes. The trick is to know when to stop cooking it so that it doesn’t get mushy.

There is nothing better than cooking when there are no deadlines. It gave me time to discard a bad batch of pastry dough and make another without feeling pressured. It gave me time to leave the flan in the oven more time than called for because I had doubled the recipe. It gave me time to sip my breakfast coffee for hours.

The rest of the day included a walk with my husband, a nap, playing the piano for a while, a surprise baguette from our friend Kris, and then dinner with my friend Reya. When I got home, I realized that today was just a sampler of the people and activities I love most. I had a lot of extra energy that was freed up by releasing my anger. If this day was typical, retirement is everything it had been advertized to be.