When friends retire, I never buy them a retirement card, as I may have written before. But instead, I buy them a Happy Graduation card, firmly believing it is the way we should view this next season of our lives. In generations past there was the traditional 30 to 40 years of a career but in today's world this does not seem to be the case. We work multiple jobs throughout our lives and wear multiple hats.
My bucket list of retirement plans has been so dense that I have yet to even get back to my intention to write more projects. Maybe it is my love of learning, but I have taken on projects of becoming an antique dealer, tutoring in English, painting, volunteering at Playmakers Theater, making candles, and now learning to sew.
I want to make my own curtains and pillows --- why? --- because now I have the extra time , which I really don't because I am making candles, volunteering at Playmakers, writing, gardening, and painting. But it is on my list, and I want to learn how to do it.
In 4H many years ago I took a sewing course. I got the book, read the instructions, threaded a needle, made a hem and lost interest until achievement day when I scrambled to make a pillow, which did not really come to fruition.
And then years later I was sitting in my grandmother's kitchen after just getting married when I produced two shirts that needed a button for my husband.
My grandmother laughed as I butchered the task, jabbing into the cotton and knotting up the thread. And like it was nothing at all, she gathered the shirt from me and rethreaded the needle. She whipped the thread in and out, twisting around the base of the button and then repeating again to give the button some space from the material but still being held firmly. Who would have thought so much went into a button?
After that day, for close to forty years I can fix a hem with wobbly stitching, and I can sew on a button. And on the rare occasions I do this, I am right back in Grandma's kitchen sitting in front of her fireplace as she approved of my work.
Much like the time she taught me how to properly hoe the weeds in my garden with the ease of a master. In fact, when I think back on my grandmothers, they never really retired either; they just continued to graduate from one season of life to the next with the art of running a household and raising a family.
I have realized that is really what my retirement bucket list is all about. Now that I have the extra time, I want to get back to homing in on those "other things" we do as mothers, wives, and grandmothers. Mastering a garden, building fresh flower arrangements, painting art, making aromatic candles and sewing pillows for my home. I want to enjoy the added minutes of my day embracing the rituals of my grandmothers and their grandmothers through time, mending and creating through each new season of their lives.
Grandmother never said, "A stitch in time saves nine." She never "told" me a great deal of things. She just took the needle or hoe from my hands and demonstrated quietly. And for this reason, these women still have not retired. Their hands are with mine as I sow my seeds and mend my shirts and pass along the art of not working but living.
