Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Not Quite Retired but Writing
For many of us older—but not too old-- teachers/writers who can figure out a way to release ourselves from full-time teaching before the body starts to break down past the point of repair-- we’re often called back (the siren call of students we want to teach and books we want to write) and yes, the need for some money. My friend, Jackie Davis-Martin, a teacher and writer, also took the plunge to leave full-time teaching—she left at 62—-despite some money fears-- and then also took on some part-time teaching and continues to write.
When she was full-time and “collecting annoyances” as she said, she ached for a weekend without grading and got annoyed when people said, “It’s Friday, Happy Weekend!” The life of a full-time English teacher is non-stop grading. Period. And if you decide to take a weekend off, the piles just grow—multiply like dishes or rabbits. Unlike some people who fear THE VOID, Jackie says, “I didn’t have fears of ceasing to be (thanks, Keats), but some fears of money. I’d been teaching in California only seventeen years and, when I visited a retirement advisor, he was full of so many “should haves” about what I should have done with my life that I actually wrote a short story about him."
Now she teaches part-time at City College of San Francisco (where we met) and she says, “I love my colleagues, love the students, love what I am teaching. Part-time allows me involvement in the college, but time to write. I write both fiction and non-fiction.
So: this is my retirement.”
Not everyone slips into this new life of the not quite retired so easily. Age-related discrimination is real and many young people are scrambling for jobs as well. It’s a risk to leave a job early—but ultimately for those of us who write—those of us who wake up in the middle of the night thinking of a scene from our book—or who listen to the lilt in the voice of the Starbuck’s server as he takes our order hearing “Chai Latte” roll off his tongue like music—or for those of us who have buried our desires six feet deep into the earth because we have to “make money” “be responsible” then taking this chance at a new life with part-time work and extra time brings us teachers/writers back to the old magic of words.
Friday, June 7, 2013
Parental Voices
When I visited my parent’s urns in New York City—a number of years after they had died, I saw their names etched into the three-story wall of names at the Trinity Mausoleum. Their ashes were behind the wall—what was left of their flesh and bone. But their spirits were alive in me--so alive, in fact, that I found myself arguing with them (mainly my mother) over whether I was doing the right thing by retiring at 61 instead of staying at least a few more years in my full-time teaching job. Should I do this? Can I do this? I wanted them to leap out of the concrete wall, fully embodied and tell me what to do. Pathetic, perhaps, that at 61 I still wanted their permission? But my mother, though a small person, was a force to reckon with.
But don’t we all, in some primal way, want to please our parents (even if we rebel). I’ve done many readings of my poetry and prose but I remember, very specifically, the few times that my parents were in the audience. I remember what they were wearing—my mother with her ultra suede skirts and silk blouses, my father with his khaki pants and sports coat. I remember where they sat. What I had for dinner that particular night (lasagna flooded with cheese). I remember what they said or didn’t say.
So even though I had done my calculations for years now, believing that Jim and I could figure out a way to live on less—I could hear my ever-practical depression-era mother asking me endless questions: “How will you pay all your bills?” “Do you want to give up $300 more dollars a month in pension money?” “Will you be able to set up classes?”
Then there was the other side—my husband and sister’s voices: “We’ll be fine” “Take care of your neck” “You’ll find classes to teach.”
In the end I did retire at 61—but not really retire. I have set up many classes. I’m writing every week. We sold one car. We have students living with us. We have a house and enough to eat.
But sometimes I imagine my mother shaking a finger at me—(if I spend too much on a credit card or live beyond my means). My father paces every once in a while—but mostly he’s happy to see birds fly by or read words shaped by the cumulus clouds that float endlessly in the upper realms where they now live.
I’ve made my decision and it’s the right one. I’m a member of the SF Writer’s Grotto and today I’m writing—one of the main reasons I left my job—to write more.
I don’t need to ask permission any longer though I think my mother has given me some advice during the night. “Stop spending so much money on chai lattes,” she said when I was sleeping. “And take your lunch to work with you!” “And sew buttons on that coat. You don’t need a new one!”
“Yes, Mother,” I say. Though I think I will slip out the door for a chai latte later on.
When I visited my parent’s urns in New York City—a number of years after they had died, I saw their names etched into the three-story wall of names at the Trinity Mausoleum. Their ashes were behind the wall—what was left of their flesh and bone. But their spirits were alive in me--so alive, in fact, that I found myself arguing with them (mainly my mother) over whether I was doing the right thing by retiring at 61 instead of staying at least a few more years in my full-time teaching job. Should I do this? Can I do this? I wanted them to leap out of the concrete wall, fully embodied and tell me what to do. Pathetic, perhaps, that at 61 I still wanted their permission? But my mother, though a small person, was a force to reckon with.
But don’t we all, in some primal way, want to please our parents (even if we rebel). I’ve done many readings of my poetry and prose but I remember, very specifically, the few times that my parents were in the audience. I remember what they were wearing—my mother with her ultra suede skirts and silk blouses, my father with his khaki pants and sports coat. I remember where they sat. What I had for dinner that particular night (lasagna flooded with cheese). I remember what they said or didn’t say.
So even though I had done my calculations for years now, believing that Jim and I could figure out a way to live on less—I could hear my ever-practical depression-era mother asking me endless questions: “How will you pay all your bills?” “Do you want to give up $300 more dollars a month in pension money?” “Will you be able to set up classes?”
Then there was the other side—my husband and sister’s voices: “We’ll be fine” “Take care of your neck” “You’ll find classes to teach.”
In the end I did retire at 61—but not really retire. I have set up many classes. I’m writing every week. We sold one car. We have students living with us. We have a house and enough to eat.
But sometimes I imagine my mother shaking a finger at me—(if I spend too much on a credit card or live beyond my means). My father paces every once in a while—but mostly he’s happy to see birds fly by or read words shaped by the cumulus clouds that float endlessly in the upper realms where they now live.
I’ve made my decision and it’s the right one. I’m a member of the SF Writer’s Grotto and today I’m writing—one of the main reasons I left my job—to write more.
I don’t need to ask permission any longer though I think my mother has given me some advice during the night. “Stop spending so much money on chai lattes,” she said when I was sleeping. “And take your lunch to work with you!” “And sew buttons on that coat. You don’t need a new one!”
“Yes, Mother,” I say. Though I think I will slip out the door for a chai latte later on.
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