Blessings of Fogiedom

Don’t laugh at me,” Annette said.  She had been reading about budgeting techniques and had a formula about needs, wants and savings. She wanted to discuss how we were managing according to the plan. 

I didn’t laugh, but I’ve been in the business -- not the financial business, the writing business.  Writers get stuck for something to say, and any plausible idea will do when a deadline is at hand. Wisdom is rare in the popular press.  Still, discussing the proportions of our spending made us think about our habits.  Classifying things by wants and needs helped us remember that there are still purchases we can do without. 

I thought of the scene from “Dances with Wolves” in which Kevin Costner’s character John Dunbar sits and smokes with the wise Indian Ten Bears.  Dunbar says, “I pushed him to move the camp, but he only talked of simple pleasures. He reminded me that at his age a good fire is better than anything.”

I may never achieve Ten Bears’ simplicity, but I know what he means.  Retirement has made available the luxury of the siesta.  I do not speak of a power nap, which is a technique to increase productivity.  The executive justifies a tiny dose of shuteye on the theory that he’ll leap up from it a dynamo of energy and roar past his competition, which has been plodding wearily while he recharged. I’m talking about the pure luxury of going to sleep in the daytime. 

To a retiree, time isn’t money.  I close my eyes and the brightness of sunlight reflected from snow floods in the windows and seeps through the skin of my eyelids, reminding me that this isn’t the routine of nighttime repose; this is perfect indulgence, the sweetest sleep of all. The pillow feels particularly soft, and slumber envelops me like a loving embrace.  Then, of course, the phone rings. 

Reading is another of the great luxuries of fogiedom.  I stroll past the shelves of the Plymouth Library a wealthy man, plucking a volume to take home.  In times past only the lord of the manor had such an array at his fingertips.  At my home computer I enter a title into the field of the Old Colony Library Network or OCLN and put it on hold.  In a few days it will be available for me to pick up. 

I never lack for companions whether I’m enjoying a quiet day at home or stuck on a wooden bench in the Registry of Motor Vehicles waiting for my number on the screen. Writers, ancient and modern, surround me.  At my age I’ve given up the illusion that I can keep up with the latest best sellers, and this gives me time to reread some of the books I remember with so much love.   

In the winter, like Ten Bears, I have a fire.  I drag the comfortable living room chairs up to the hearth.  Between them I place the Chinese garden seat I use for a side table.  It makes a great place to read, eat, or drift into the land of dreams.