Today is November 1, 2023.
I went searching for a pithy quote about November and this is where I stopped looking:
“November always seemed to me the Norway of the year.”
– Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson has always cracked me up. I know I know — she is widely considered to be America’s greatest poet. I’m a troglodyte when it comes to poetry. I’ve spent 25 years ridiculing the “Belle of Amherst” since I wrote a play making fun of her work on nearly every page. After I finished writing it I was shocked to learn that Harvard University Press still held the copyright on most of her creations and they insisted on reading my two-act mockery before granting permission for me to quote her.
Even more shockingly, they decided it was fine, go ahead and perform it!
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul…
– Emmy again
You can’t make this stuff up. Oh, I get it, in this famous piece, a bird is implied as a metaphor for hope. I just find most metaphors to be unnecessary and often unintentionally funny abstractions.
And yet, when I went looking for a pithy quote about November I was hoping to find a touching metaphor of life approaching its final days.
Since I turned 70 more than two years ago I’ve made an effort to think philosophically about aging. Songs and stories are always referring to May to December romances and such.
Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few
September, November
And these few precious days I’ll spend with you– “September Song”, lyrics by Maxwell Anderson, music by Kurt Weill
I retired from radio yesterday and I’m very happy about it. I have no second thoughts and no regrets.
I just wanted to say something pithy that would express my complex sense of aging and, quite coincidentally, of leaving one’s lifelong career in the past.
Norway would have never occurred to me.
“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.
-You gotta love her, Emily Dickinson
I have wondered if it was sheer bravado whenever I heard retired people praise their retirement as the “new chapter” in their lives. Maybe it is for some, but I’m all in.
I’ve had a wonderful life and I still do. I’m more aware than ever of how fast my life has gone because I cherish every moment. I wouldn’t change a thing. I mean that literally.
I also know that I’m relatively close to the end of my life, but I’m not there yet.
Happily, I’m finally old enough to get it. These really are my golden years.
You’ll get it when you get here.
A calm routine with family & dogs punctuated (hopefully) by adventures. We wish you all the best.
Congratulations, Brother Dave! I hope you wander aimlessly and also eat Texas BBQ and also write masterpieces and also enjoy the heck out of whatever you’re doing or not doing at the moment.
Thanks. Clearly, you get it. Wandering aimlessly is the whole point of wandering, it’s the secret.
I’ve been wandering around on a perpetual retirement roller coaster for a few years now, some days are bliss aome days make me want to scream but at least I get to see the sun come up on each of those days.
Seeing the sun come up is God’s chief blessing. New possibilities, new headaches, but each waking moment is filled with miracles we tend to take for granted. Bless you, my friend.