SCHOOL’S OUT FOR SUMMER!

I recently retired from a thirty-five year career as a psychotherapist/couples counselor/teacher. I dearly love retirement. But it flabbergasts me that I no longer bring in income, yet my life is rich and full. “I work well, therefore I can live well,” has been my contract with the Universe since I was twenty. Alarm clocks, fortitude, and good black shoes have helped.

Now, first thing after my morning shower, I sit in my den or on my deck by the river and read a novel while I guzzle coffee. It feels luxurious. I feel free. Before retirement, I’d never understood binge watching, but now I do, and I feel free watching Indy movies or multiple episodes of Mad Men or Transparent or Mozart in the Jungle. I feel free when I write on my own novel for two hours at a stretch. I feel free when I walk our trail, slowly enough to see the rosy salmon berries and the insistent woodpecker tapping out his territory and the gorgeous gray-blue stretch of river.

But something’s been off. A voice in the back of my head. Reading and writing? Movies? Walking? Really? You have less and less time left in your life. Shouldn’t you be exploring the world? Saving somebody? Climbing or fording something? It takes the shine off my shine sometime.

I got some help though, in getting my shine back. Ed and I scheduled a California trip to see our two grandchildren, making sure we’ll arrive before their school dismisses for the summer. We’ll pick them up at noon, and we’ll take them on a celebratory afternoon to their favorite restaurant or skate park or movie theater or maybe all three. I can just see their faces, lit up with knowing school’s out for summer.

I thought about blasting Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out For Summer!” as the kids climb into our car. But I listened to it and winced, imagining how that particular brand of rage might affect a nine and a twelve year old who still melt me with their innocent excitement. I’ll save Alice for when they’re older and jaded.

And then I thought about me when I was their age, and summer vacation stretched in front of me, barefoot and green and forever. I remembered the delight of examining the calendar, seeing that three months equaled ninety whole days. Ninety days to decide, all day long, exactly what I wanted to do.

And I remembered what my little girl self loved. I loved reading Little Women while drinking a cold Coke. I loved Ozzie and Harriet and Dragnet and Maverick, anything with characters and a story. I loved to play outside. I loved to make up words to songs. I loved to do then what I love to do now. It’s not settling for less. I’m not underachieving. It’s not wrong. It’s me. It always has been.

“I feel like a little girl who just got out of school for summer,” I told Ed.

“That’s exactly what you look like,” he said. “You’re wide-eyed at the freedom you have to play.”

The quote by Aristophanes, “The old are in a second childhood,” makes good sense to me now.

And Alice Cooper’s words have taken on new meaning.

“School’s out for summer! School’s out—Completely.”

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