The Tyranny of "Normal"

Last night was the first “normal” Sunday since I retired. The first Sunday was the day before a workshop trip-something I had done several times before using vacation time-and the second Sunday I was sick and would have called off anyway. (There is a discussion of that coming in another essay.)

As I had on most of the previous 2,850 weeks I went through the standard end-of-the-weekend personal care rituals. I washed my hair, refilled my pill container, laid out clothes for the following morning; all the things I did in preparation for going back to work in the morning.

But I wasn’t going back to work in the morning. I didn’t need to follow my old patterns, and I could choose a different pattern. Unfortunately, that message hadn’t quite reached my brain. Instead my brain decided to fall into its famous Sunday Night Anxiety Attack (pat pending).

It seems that for those same 2,850 weeks my brain had a standard process also. It went into freak-out mode about the coming week, all the things I had failed to accomplish over the weekend, the car payment that was due in two weeks, did I turn off the light in the kitchen, and eventually branched out to the time I missed the bus in college and tried to walk the 6 miles to school, and that embarrassing incident in 6th grade involving people I have not seen since 1963. Okay, so maybe a few more weeks that I originally calculated.

Good times!

I have always blamed myself and my schedule for these attacks. I would run on four or five hours sleep every day of the week, then on the weekend I would try to “catch up” on the missed sleep. I would wake up at my usual time, say to myself “It’s Saturday,” and go back to sleep.  Lather, rinse, repeat, until I finally rolled out of bed at noon having eventually slept about eight hours.

I told myself that by Sunday night I was somewhat rested and since I’d only been out of bed for twelve hours I wasn’t ready to go to sleep when I finished my routine and crawled back in bed.

In the past, part of this pattern was staring into the dark, trying not to wake my sleeping husband, and obsessively checking the clock and calculating just how many hours sleep I could still get if I managed to go to sleep right now. It didn’t help, but doing the math at least gave my brain something else to do for a few minutes. Sometimes the distraction-if I could draw it out long enough-would break the cycle and allow me to sleep for a few hours before dragging myself out of bed at the same time as always and trudging groggily off to work.

Last night was no different. I stared into space, checked the clock, did all the usual things, even though I knew deep down that I didn’t have to go to work in the morning. Old habits die very hard.

I didn’t do the one thing I always told myself I would do if I didn’t have to go to work. I didn’t get up and create. I followed my old pattern, the not-very-functional one I developed to cope with an anxiety attack on a work night; the one that tried to get me at least a few hours of rest before I had to get up and face the world.

But I don’t have to do that anymore, and the old coping mechanism doesn’t fit with my new circumstances. If I can’t sleep I can try doing other things, including getting up at four in the morning and writing.

Truthfully, once I had that realization I did spend the next hour or so writing this piece in my head. I still didn’t get out of bed and actually put it on paper (or in pixels, but you know what I mean), but I did begin to understand that I could. I didn’t have to follow the routines of the past.

So what am I going to do with this new-found knowledge? My intention is two-fold:

1.   The next time I have one of these episodes I am going to give myself permission to “give up” on sleep, get out of bed, and go do something creative. Channel that mental energy into something I want to do and hope that doing something positive will allow me to return to bed and sleep for whatever hours I need. After all, I am not on anyone else’s schedule and I can sleep as late as I need to, or take a nap later in the day if I want to.

2.   Alter the pattern. I don’t have to refill the pill box on Sunday night. I can do it on Tuesday, or Thursday morning, or in the wee hours when I can’t seem to sleep. I can wash my hair on Wednesday afternoon, or Saturday morning, or every time I go to the pool for water aerobics (Side note: I can go to the pool for water aerobics in the middle of the day now, because I am no longer on anyone else’s schedule!) Altering the pattern means that I am removing at least some of the triggers that set me up for an all-nighter watching re-runs of Chris’s Greatest Screw-Ups.

I hope that by taking these two steps-altering my response and changing up the routine that triggers the anxiety in the first place-I can reduce the impact or reduce the frequency with which the attacks occur.

Stay tuned here for a report in a couple months on the outcome of this experiment. Whatever happens will give me some insight into what works for me now, and if this doesn’t succeed maybe the failure will point me in a new direction.

Either way, I hope we can learn something along the way.

The Gift of Inspiration: An Addition to my Office!

There's a new addition in my tiny office, and it was worth making room for.

Our old shop, a dilapidated addition to the house dating back several decades, was damaged beyond repair in a winter storm. We hastily put the contents into a rented storage space and began the construction of a replacement. The story of the new space is a saga in itself, but suffice it to say it took longer and cost more than we expected. (Which will come as no surprise to anyone who has dealt with construction.)

The dumpster in the background got filled a couple times as we made way for the new building.

When completed, it provided us with a shop for my husband, storage, and the corner for my new office. It really is kind of a tiny room, a 7 X 11 corner carved out of the shop building. As a result, I have resisted the impulse to put anything non-essential in the space. It is intended as my writing space, and I work very hard to keep it free of clutter.

I eventually added another table and a couple chairs, so it really isn’t this sparse!

I have mostly succeeded. An adjustable height table for my computer and associated gear, and two chairs. I put a couple bulletin boards up to hold notes on my current projects, and I was in business. No muss, no fuss, and most of all no outside distractions.

But a few weeks ago I made room for an addition, and it makes me insanely happy to have it here.

It's a bookcase.

Now that must sound silly. Writers must have lots of bookcases, right? Of course. I have to confess that there is almost no artwork on the walls of our house because those walls are packed with bookcases, which are in turn packed full of books. But I was keeping the office uncluttered, right?

But I needed a bookcase to hold some very special books. Books that I could not refuse when a friend offered them to me. Books that I have been trying to resist for several years.

I am now the proud owner of a 66-volume set of Erle Stanley Gardner novels. Each volume contains two novels, and the matched set looks great all set up in its own bookcase.

But it isn't the look that I care about. It is what Gardner and his work mean to me, and the amazingly generous friend who gifted them to me. A friend who understood that without Gardner and his creations - especially Perry Mason - I would never have become a mystery writer.

I was an early reader. I can't remember a time when I couldn't read. I started when I was three, according to my mother, and I have never stopped. But one of the downsides of an early reader is that our reading ability far outstrips our social and emotional maturity, and we end up reading things that are perhaps less than appropriate for our age group.

Which is how I started reading Perry Mason when I was about ten. By current standards the books are probably rather tame. There's little onstage violence, or sex, or blood and gore. Justice is served, Mason always prevails, and the good guys win. But for a ten-year-old in the 1950s? We were supposed to read Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys. I'd already done that, and my great-uncle was subversive enough to share his paperbacks with me as soon as he finished them. Even now I credit him with my mystery career.

Ten-year-old me didn't think of becoming a writer, though. I had loftier goals; I wanted to go to law school, to be a lawyer, and then a judge. I wanted to participate in serving justice, like Perry Mason.

That didn't happen.

But somewhere along the line I started telling stories, eventually I started publishing novels, and finally I got the chance to see justice served, even if it was only in stories. My stories. Stories I was able to share with others.

I don't have 132 novels to my name. Far from it. But there's still time. And I have a bookcase full of Perry Mason stories, and Bertha Cool/Donald Lam stories, and others to inspire me and remind me why I started doing this in the first place.

They occupy a place of honor, the only distraction I allow in my tiny office. They are a reminder of how I started writing, and what telling these stories mean to me.

And they also serve as a reminder of the friends who knew me well enough to know how much this gift would mean to me.

The Aftermath of a Disaster

For those of you who might wonder what it looks like after a devastating fire, I am posting a link to drone footage of one of the nard-hit areas near us. I have several good friends who lived in the middle of this. This is what I wrote about it.

https://youtu.be/8HS0B_cev9g

I was working at the relief distribution center at the mall this afternoon. Dangerous for my bank account as they desperately needed socks and the Hanes store was only 2 doors down. I made 2 trips, but had to limit my purchases to what I could afford. The first time I bought a couple dozen pairs, and they went quickly.

We didn't have a flood of people, but there was a fairly steady stream throughout the day. We had a large supply of toiletries bags from Goodwill with shampoo, a bar of soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, and a single clean washcloth. We gave one to each person, or multiples if they mentioned a spouse, kid, girlfriend, etc. And bread-we had a lot of bread so it got to be kind of a joke, telling people they could have whatever they had picked out but they had to take some bread with it.

There was one young man. near closing, who looked shell-shocked, barely holding it together. He needed socks but when I showed him where they were we were completely out of men's sizes. He didn't complain, just nodded and went to look for the other things he needed. That was the reason for my second trip. I couldn't send him out of there without even a single clean pair of socks. 

I just couldn't.

I ran to Hanes, grabbed what I could, and hurried back, afraid he might have given up and left, but he hadn't. I shoved a six-pack of socks into his hands and said "You look like you could use these." It was such a little thing, just a few bucks for some socks, not much more than I would spend on a latte (with tip) if I was treating myself.

It's heartbreaking. I did a little thing. A privileged-white-lady thing. I could afford it, even on my retirement-income-budget. I just wish I could do more.

There is a follow-up to this story. After my post appeared I got a private email from a friend who lives in another state. They offered to help if I would do the shopping, which I immediately agreed to, of course. So yesterday afternoon we checked with the relief center and found they were once again out of new men's socks. Thanks to the generosity of my friend we were able to deliver 8 dozen pairs of brand new socks to help with the relief efforts. Again, it's a small thing. But if you've never been that young man who was wearing the same socks for three days, count your blessings. I know I am being reminded daily to count mine.

Writer, Interrupted

 As I said in my first Dispatch this month, I have once again begun giving away my time. Lots of time. No, not the few hours of volunteering I'm doing in the wake of the wildfires, but large chunks of time, day after day.

Can you guess what happened?

Yes, I went back to work.

No, it is not permanent.

I made a decision to help my former employer through a rough patch with some specific projects, knowing it would affect my creativity. It would take time away from my writing, from this page, and from my family.

I chose to give away my time.

As I said in the introduction to the last Dispatch, I am getting paid. Not at the consultant rates that I might be able to command elsewhere, but above my previous wage. It's still cheaper for my old employer since they don't have to provide medical insurance now that I'm on Medicare, but I'm not working for free.

When I retired in February I knew questions would arise from time to time. After all I had been there nearly 21 years, and my boss for all those years had retired the previous May after more than 25 years. In a department with only three full-time and two part-time employees, that's a lot of experience and institutional knowledge to lose in just a few months.

What we didn't anticipate was just how many questions there would be, and how much help our replacements would need.

My now-retired boss lives 70 miles away, and isn't readily available. I'm two miles away, and my replacement happens to be a close friend starting a new career in accounting. I promised to do whatever I could to make his first job in this new field a success.

That promise is a big part of why I am back at work.

The new boss has had some issues adjusting to the unique aspects of the position, and as a result some annual processes got delayed. My friend tried to help, but he's new to this and it was wearing him down.

They needed help.

After an appeal from the boss's boss, I set some ground rules, threw out an hourly number, and agreed to help - as long as I could work from home. There was no way I was going into an open hotel in the middle of a pandemic (well, except for that whole One-If-By-Land evacuation thing I wrote about earlier this week).

The reasons I made this choice are complicated, and I have fallen victim to some emotional appeals, the lure of a cash infusion for my retirement fund, and the temptations of my own ego.

Some of these may be good and valid reasons, and some may not be. But I am going to lay them out and let you see how easy it is to get sucked back in, especially when you're stuck in quarantine and bored senseless.

Warning number one: Don't do something just because you're bored. Yes, do something if you're bored, but do something you love, something you want to do, something that makes you happy.

Warning number two: Don't do it just for the money - unless money is critical, and that's a much bigger issue. Don't get me wrong, money is a great thing, and I am sure we would all like to have more of it. But if money alone is enough to force you back into a regular job, you probably aren't really ready to retire.

Warning number three: Don't do it out of obligation. You may certainly feel loyalty to your old job, or to the people you worked with, or for. When a problem arises there is often the desire to "fix" whatever it is. You know this, you tell yourself. You can take care of it in no time, and everything will be better. And it will. Until the next time. Unfortunately, unless the situation is beyond anyone's control and is truly a once-in-a-lifetime crisis, all you are doing is delaying the inevitable.

Warning number four: Don't settle for the first offer you get. You can dismiss all the other warnings (including the next one) and go ahead with your rescue mission anyway. But if you do you certainly deserve the respect and gratitude of your employer-and that should be reflected in the form of your compensation. You are doing them a favor, and you shouldn't sell yourself short. After all, you are giving up the time you worked for, the time you wanted for your creative pursuits, and you deserve to be compensated for that sacrifice.

Warning number five: Don't let your ego overrule your good sense. This may be the toughest lesson to learn. You know you can do the job, and probably far better than the person who replaced you. Years of experience, years those of us who have reached retirement age certainly have, give you the ability to perform quickly and efficiently. If your old job needs you back they are going to remind you how great you are, how well you can do the job, how much they need you. That appeal to your ego, that flattery (no matter how true or well-deserved) can have you saying "Yes" when you really want to say "No."

The truth is, I have fallen for every one of these reasons. With the current pandemic I am stuck at home. It's a safety issue for everyone, but we can't ignore the fact that we are a high risk group due to our age. That isolation manifests in many ways, and boredom is a big one. I told myself I wasn't going anywhere anyway, I might as well work, and get paid for it. Like I said above, we all would like a little more money. At least I managed to get a bit more money than I was initially offered, and I successfully requested my seniority and benefit accruals be restored.

That covers one, two, and four.

Three and five are trickier because they are emotional hooks that reach deep into our self-image and our self-esteem. It's the same impulse that caused Sally Field to blurt, "Right now, you like me!" It's validation that you are the expert at something, they you have valuable skills and knowledge. That you are capable and valued.

That is hard to resist.

We all want to think we matter. We want to think of ourselves as "good" people, and good people help each other. Good people are givers, helpers, kind and generous with their time and talents.  Good people put others before themselves.

Try telling your self-image that you can still be a good person even if you say no when someone asks for help. Especially when it's someone you consider a friend-and if you've been in a job for any length of time you often consider your co-workers to be friends.

So, I am back to work. I can tell you the boredom didn't last, but I don't think it would have anyway. I have plenty of other things to do, even if I am stuck at home.

The money is nice, and it's padded my bank account, but it's a windfall, not an income stream and I have to treat it that way

Obligation and loyalty are big ones for me. I feel as though I didn't prepare my replacements as well as I should have, and that I bear some responsibility for their shortcomings. This is a second chance for me to do a better job of setting them up for success rather than failure.

I did set the terms for my return, including a guarantee that I would only work from home. Yeah, I said staying home contributed to my boredom, but it also isolated me from exposure to strangers and potential illness.

Ego? That's still tough. I know when I relinquish my current authority I will feel some regret. I can't deny there is gratification in being the white knight riding to the rescue.

But after just a few weeks of long hours I remember why I chose to retire. I look around at the projects that are languishing because my energy and attention are elsewhere. I spend hours at the computer working for someone else and my back and hands and eyes don't want to go back to the computer for a writing session afterward.

Honestly, I am counting the days until I can retire again. And I will come back and re-read this the next time I think it might be a good idea to interrupt my retirement and my creativity. Because it really isn't.

One If By Land (follow up)

In a private email I was reminded of something I didn't mention: Passwords. My correspondent said she had hers in a secure file that a couple trusted relatives knew how to unlock. I know other people who use a cloud service for their passwords. But whatever solution you use, make sure you have those passwords with you; you never know when you might need them, or how long it will be before you can get home to retrieve them-if your computer even survives.

I have several password caches, with an actual paper list. (No, it isn't stored by the computer, I learned that lesson a couple decades ago when a friend had his computer stolen, along with the password list and ALL his backups that were kept next to the computer.) That list was one of the first things in the suitcase, along with the package of important papers like birth certificates and our marriage license. I just didn't think to mention it separately.

Give some thought to how you store and retrieve your passwords. Can a friend or relative access them if you are incapacitated? Are they accessible to you if you are forced out of your home by a disaster? There are lots of potential solutions. Choose one. Choose several. Keep them updated. (As an aside, I truly despise sites that insist you change your password every 60 or 90 days. If I already have a strong password-your own algorithm said so!-why should I keep changing it?) Keep your designated backup person updated.

OK, now that we have the serious stuff out of the way, I have a story that I found funny. Be warned, I have a warped sense of humor, and so does the friend who told me this.

You've been warned...

My friend was going in for a serious surgery. We all anticipated a good outcome, which is exactly what we got. But on the day he left for the hospital he gave us a quick tour of where to find all the emergency contact, information, etc. Just in case anything went wrong. Not morbid, or scared, just practical.

He showed me a notebook that was carefully out of sight, and explained that his brother would know where to find it if he needed it. It contained passwords and so on, just like I've been talking about. Then he told me his brother also had the password to find and remove the "porn folder" from his computer.

I kind of shrugged, and allowed as how that was probably a good thing. Wouldn't want anyone stumbling on that thing accidentally.

My friend grinned, and started laughing. "Joke's on him," he said. "It doesn't exist. But it will make him crazy looking for it." 

One If By Land, Two If By Sea

Hello from your writer in exile!

Well, I'm not in exile any longer, but it's been a frightening and chaotic week.

Let me start by saying we are home, safe, our power is restored, and we have not discovered any significant loss or damage. Even the freezer got power back enough to maintain a safe temperature over the last few days. So with that in mind, let me tell you about my week. Warning: this is a long story!

When I started writing on this project I used the metaphor of a tsunami to describe the overwhelming change that comes from retirement. It seemed appropriate, given our proximity to the ocean. 

We even had a tiny preview of a tsunami a few years ago, when the Japanese earthquake spawned devastating tsunamis in northeastern Japan. At the time of the disaster it was unclear whether the waves would propagate across the Pacific. If they did, we were a prime target. We spent a sleepless night, and went out in the early morning light to watch from our hilltop. What we actually got was maybe a couple or three feet surge that looked like going from low tide to high tide and back again, several times over the course of just a few minutes. Other places, notably Crescent City, sustained much worse damage.

It was a warning, and we took it to heart. We made sure we had plenty of emergency lights. We kept a supply of non-perishable food, and a propane stove we could attach to the tank for the grill. Living on the top of a hill we were well above the evacuation zone, and in fact were the de facto destination for our friends at lower elevations. Providing they could get here, of course. We made sure we had extra blankets, kept extra pet food in our inventory, and even tucked away some cash-because credit and debit cards would be useless without power to operate the card readers.

In short, we prepared for the threat by sea.

An earthquake, with or without a tsunami, loomed largest in our minds when we thought about preparing for a natural disaster. We expected Two If By Sea.

What we didn't expect was One If By Land. And that is exactly what we got this week.

It started over the Labor Day weekend with a warning of high east winds accompanied by high temperatures, and dry conditions. All of this added up to a perfect storm of highly unusual weather patterns. Our winds usually come from the south and west, off the ocean. Temperatures along the coast, thanks to the marine effect, are generally mild to moderate. Our summers don't get a lot of rain, but we usually get some, and while we get a little dry in the summer we aren't usually this dry.

The winds started and by Monday night they were howling around us. We expect high winds in the winter (remind me to tell you about rescuing shed walls in 125 mph winds) but it was extremely odd to have winter-storm-level winds with warm temps and no rain. The power went out Monday evening, the result of winds taking down power lines. Again, not anything new after 21 years here on the coast.

Tuesday we woke to a bright orange-red sky, and no power again. We avoided opening the refrigerator or freezer, and managed on water and peanut butter sandwiches, expecting power back any time. By late afternoon with no restoration estimate in sight, we knew there were several items in the refrigerator that wouldn't keep long without power. We made a plan, rehearsed our moves, and staged an assault that resulted in the liberation of steaks, milk, and a couple other items-all in about 9 seconds of "open" time. We slammed the door shut, fingers crossed that we hadn't allowed too much chill to escape.

We took the steaks (and the milk) to a friend's house, where a gas range allowed us to cook the meat on a stove-top grill by the light of battery-powered miniature lantern. The three of us ate by candlelight, watching the city crew pull trees off the power lines across the street, and the power company working to restring the downed lines.

Taken from my friend’s dining room window. You can see the power line dropping to the ground. At this point the wind had died down. A little.

We came home about 10, read by flashlight, texted updates to friends thanks to power packs which recharged our phones. As we were falling asleep around 2 am the lights came back on. Just in time to go to sleep.

The phone woke us the next morning, a friend who was watching the news a couple states over asking of we were okay. The downed power lines (most likely) had sparked a couple wildfires just north of town, and the situation was going downhill rapidly.

The next couple hours were a whirlwind of activity punctuated with periods of uncertainty where we stood frozen by indecision as we tried to pack up to leave, not knowing what might greet us when we returned.

It was a strange mix of feverish action and dead stop. The first 15 or 20 minutes were easy: important papers (though we later realized we forgot our passports), check books, cash, medications, clothes, water. That all went in the car, and there was room to spare, which was when indecision set in.

What next? Which sentimental items were most important? Another spurt of frenzied packing as we realized we needed to be sure all the computer backups, all our writing, made it out safely. Steve went to his office for a few minutes and emerged with the hard drive from his computer; he had managed to safely remove it in just a couple minutes.

We devised a plan: load immediate needs in the car, less immediate but important items in the van, and leave the van in the lot of the hotel where I used to work. It was a few miles down the road, and in a "clear" zone. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing.

We left by back roads, avoiding the clogged highway for the first mile or so. But then it was bumper-to-bumper as people fled the fires on the two-lane highway. Which was when we hit the first major problem. Neither vehicle had more than a quarter tank of gas, and with the holiday weekend and then power outages we hadn't been able to buy gas for several days. If we got into stalled traffic we could run out of gas and be stranded.

Steve reached the hotel before me, parked the van and walked a few blocks to the gas station that we'd been told was still open. Though it wasn't yet noon they were sold out and closed. He walked back, meeting me as I reached the hotel.

Decision time. My former boss said he'd give me a room, but the staff had mostly evacuated and I would have to clean it myself, and of course the restaurant was closed so there was no food available. We took him up on the offer. At the very least maybe we could wait out traffic in the relative safety of the hotel. Built of concrete and steel, anchored into a stone cliff with little vegetation nearby and the ocean just a few steps outside the door, it was as safe as we could get without leaving town.

Picture taken from our room early afternoon. That’s smoke in the air, not fog.

We got a housekeeping cart, sheets and towels, and settled in, grateful for the hotel's massive generator that kept lights on and elevators working.. The previous guests had left food in the refrigerator, but we tossed everything that was open, keeping half a dozen eggs. Mixed with a can of tuna from our "go bag" it made a pretty decent dinner, and our only meal of the day.

Sleep did not come easily, but hot showers helped and we were up and out early the next morning. My sister in Salem had offered us her guest room, complete with electricity, hot food, and Internet service. It sounded like Heaven.

The direct route to Salem is Oregon Highway 18, just north of town. Where the wildfires were raging, and the highway was closed. Instead we headed south, filled the gas tank in a small town about 10 miles away (us scofflaws even pumped our own gas-illegal in the state of Oregon-to keep the line moving as quickly as possible), and picked up drive-thru breakfast about 15 miles later. With both us and the car fueled, we headed east toward the Willamette Valley, about an hour away.

The drive from the hotel all the way to my sister's was incredibly smoky, visibility sometimes shrinking to a few car lengths, slowing the sparse traffic to a crawl. But at least we kept moving. It took nearly four hours to make what should have been an easy hour's drive.

We spent two nights with my sister and brother-in-law, relishing the relative safety of their home. Air quality was horrid, hitting 600+ during that time, but we kept the house closed up tightly and the AC filters did their job, keeping us relatively comfortable. Throughout those two days we kept in nearly-constant touch with friends in town, tracking the progress of the fires, the smoke, and the closed roads.

My gratitude to my amazing sister and her incredible husband is beyond words, even for someone who makes her living with words. Without their generosity and hospitality we would have been much worse off, camped out in whatever motel room we could find, eating from drive-through or take-out places, and taking our chances on whatever amenities our accommodations might offer. It's a debt that can never be repaid, even though their response was, "It's what families do." I know better. I know that there are families that don't do that. You did, and I love you for it. Thank you.

On Friday the winds shifted to the west, bringing with them marine air, lower temperatures, and an increase in humidity-all things that provided a glimmer of hope for the firefighters. By Saturday morning the evacuation warnings were relaxed and some of the roads into town were reopened. Not the most direct route, but at least we could skirt around the fires and get home in a couple hours. With the AQI at home less than half of Salem's we decided to strike out for home.

This is the IMPROVED air quality on the way home.

It took a couple hours, but we made it safely home by mid-afternoon. Along the way we took a short detour off the Coast Highway to check out Pacific City, and one of the famous "haystack" rocks just off the beach.

Yes, there really is a big rock out there. It’s just hidden by the smoke. Usually it looks like this.

This is what it SHOULD look like.

A few miles south we passed the junction where our usual route reaches the Coast Highway. It was closed, and remains closed two days later, with the likelihood that it will remain closed for several more days.

The closed highway sign, and the even-more-improved air quality as we approach home.

Up that closed highway the fires remain uncontained, though at this point they have been surrounded by a hose line and have not grown in the last few days. Entire neighborhoods have been destroyed, and families fled with little more than the clothes on their backs. They can't get back in to see what, if anything, is still standing, and many have left the area (as we did) to shelter with friends or family. As of Monday the list of GoFundMe and other fund-raising efforts have exceeded 130 different funds for groups, families, and individuals whose homes were damaged or destroyed.

We are a small town, and the loss is nearly overwhelming, but it is heartening to see how people are coming together to help.

Sunday morning, after our first good night's sleep in a week, we began scouring the house for things we could donate. I went through the linen closet, the bathroom cupboards, and my own closet. I had a stack of brand new T-shirts that went in the collection, along with toiletries, sheets, shoes, and additional clothing.

We took our stuff to a collection point and asked what else they needed. We were told diapers and formula, along with several other things. They also needed volunteers to sort, fold, and organize donations, so I signed up for a three-hour shift today, Monday.

On the way home I stopped at a local department store and dropped a couple hundred dollars on diapers, socks, and underwear. It just felt as though something as simple as a new pair of socks was a small comfort I could share with someone. We don't have a lot of money, but we still have a house, we have all our belongings, and our lives are intact. It would be horrible not to share.

I did my shift today, helping to sort and stack boxes of diapers, packs of baby wipes, and bag after bag of donated clothing. With each one I realized how fortunate we were, and I watched as people who had lost everything carefully picked through to find a single pair of jeans, a couple shirts, and shoes that mostly fit. No one took much, leaving supplies for those that came behind them, grateful for the small amount they did take.

There are more days of this ahead of us. People without homes, without warm clothes, without food or any way to cook what they do get. I will continue to volunteer as I am able, and try to remember to count my blessings.

There are lessons to be learned from this experience. Don't let the gas tank get low, even if you have to deal with heavy tourist traffic (or plan better and get it done before a big tourist weekend). Don't let the laundry stack up-we had a full hamper and I almost had to pack dirty clothes and hope I got a chance to wash them. Keep your important papers organized and easily accessible (and don't forget the passports).

The biggest lesson, though, came in those paralyzed moments when we were shoving our belongings into the car. In the end, it's all just "stuff." Even the house we have lived in for more than 20 years. As I looked around that day, knowing that Steve and I were heading into the unknown but at least we were together and we would be safe, I kept repeating those words.

"It's only stuff."

Recommended Reading: Every Tool's a Hammer

Recommended Reading

Every Tool's a Hammer: Life Is What You Make It

by Adam Savage

Sometimes you pick up a book about one thing and it surprises you with something completely unexpected. That was my experience with Adam Savage's book Every Tool's a Hammer.

Most of the world knows Savage from his tenure on the Discovery Channel show Mythbusters. But he's far more than the guy we saw doing crazy stuff on the show. He's one of the mainstays of the maker movement (of which I hope this column is a small part), a talented graphic artist, and an incredibly creative person.

My husband Steve and I are fans of Savage and his work. We have followed his various endeavors and Steve - a maker in his own right - could hardly wait for the release of Savage's book. It was practically guaranteed to be right in his wheelhouse.

Steve shares many of Savage's enthusiasms: robots, sci-fi, tools of all types (including hammers), organizing and equipping a shop, woodworking, space and spacesuits, movie props and modelmaking. The list goes on and on.

Steve got the audiobook as soon as it was released, and listened to it immediately. He raved about it and kept telling me I should listen to it, that I was going to like it.

Knowing Savage's background in film and TV, and his on-screen persona from Mythbusters as well as his public image from on-line podcasts such as Still Untitled: the Adam Savage Project, I figured the book would be entertaining.

What I didn't count on was a deeply moving treatise on creativity, and the role of creativity in living an authentic life.

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of very practical parts to Savage's exploration of his life so far, and a lot of behind-the-scenes stories about his work and himself. There's an entire chapter devoted to glue, he rhapsodizes over his love for cardboard, and he has a little rant about scissors. But even those seemingly mundane topics are illuminated by both their relationship to making, and by Savage's own interaction with them.

Nick Offerman describes this book as "An imperative how-to for creativity."

I couldn't have said it any better.

Buy it. Read it. I promise it will speak to you.

Every Tool's a Hammer: Life is What You Make It, by Adam Savage

Atria Books (May 7, 2019) 288 pages ISBN 978-1982113476

Also available in ebook and audio

We Are Safe

I alluded to a delay in publishing last week because of distractions, in the post I put up here this evening. But after writing that post for Patreon (where you can get all my content early, link in sidebar), thing got much, much worse. Unseasonable weather led to wildfires which led to evacuations.

We are home, our house is still standing and we are safe. But there was a slight delay in posting. The whole story will be here at a later date.

I Screwed Up Already

In what can only be a bit of irony I was so distracted with other things this week that this post is going up a few hours late. I had one of those "Oh, shoot, it's Sunday and the Patreon post isn't up!" moments. And yes, that is the result of another "giving away my time" issue, which I will talk about in the next Dispatch. At least I am getting paid for this one, but it has eaten up a lot of time. 

Well, I promised to be honest, and to report successes and failures. No covering up, or pretending it didn’t happen. So here goes.

Now that you’re retired you have all the time in the world. Right? You can create whenever you want, for as long as you want. Your schedule is your own, you can come and go as you wish. You can choose to have coffee with friends, or travel. Whatever you want. After all, you have all the time in the world.

Right?

Wrong!

If you want to be a creative of any kind you do not have all the time in the world. You do have time for the things that are most important to you, just as you always have. But, just as always, people will assume that since you no longer have a “real” job you can give that time away.

This isn’t a new problem for creatives. People have always assumed that a creative person can just adjust their schedule at a moment’s notice; that they do have all the time in the world.

As a creative, protecting your time has always been a struggle. You already had to work around a job, a family, responsibilities at home, exercise to maintain your health – a laundry list of other concerns. 

You want to help. You want to socialize. You want to volunteer at your kid’s school, or the food bank, or the local animal shelter. You want to take time to watch a movie with your partner, or bake cookies just because you can.

But now it’s worse. Now, with the demands of a day job schedule removed you may feel like you do have time for all those other things. Without that pesky day job eating up all those hours every day you can do anything.

No. 

No you can’t. 

The reality is that those day job hours were forty hours out of one hundred sixty eight every week. Less than a quarter of your time. Time that you always told yourself you could use for writing, painting, jewelry making, knitting, gourmet cooking, wine making, woodworking – for whatever is your creative endeavor. For whatever has always had to fit into your other schedule.

Now you are tempted to give that time away, to do all those things you “missed” when you took time to be creative.

How do I know all this? I would love to claim that it’s because I have learned to protect my creative time over the years and I am successfully translating that skill to retirement. 

The truth is it’s because I have already, less than two weeks into retirement, failed miserably. The other sad truth is that I wasn’t that good at protecting my time before I retired, so this isn’t a new problem. Just a much problem-er problem.

It was a little thing, hardly more than an inconvenience, but it was also indicative of a larger problem; of an attitude that could torpedo my entire third act.

Our small town is just over one hundred miles from the closest airport. There are a couple local landing strips, but nothing that can accommodate a commercial flight. Getting to or from the airport takes close to three hours of driving, more if you encounter traffic. And there is always traffic. 

A few days after I retired I was talking to a friend who was planning to visit. They weren’t sure if they would drive or fly, and mentioned that flying would mean renting a car to get here from the airport.

Without thinking I answered. “Or we could pick you up. It’s only a couple hours, and I’m retired,” I laughed.

What was I thinking? Honestly, I wasn’t. I wasn’t thinking about how that “couple hours” could be four or more-each way-if we hit traffic. How seeing a good friend would mean we’d probably stop for coffee on the way, maybe even grab a bite to eat because they would be hungry after traveling. How we could get lost in conversation and spend a couple hours on that “quick” stop for coffee. 

How a “couple hours” could turn into an entire day, with hours in traffic and on mountain roads, and exhaustion when I finally reached home. How a “couple hours” could cost me a full day of writing.

And how easily one day could turn into several, every week. Because I now have “all the time in the world.”

You and I, we don’t have all the time in the world. We still have only one hundred sixty eight hours in each week. We don’t have to give someone else forty of those hours (plus commuting time if you live in a larger city; my commute was only two miles, but I am an exception) but time is still a finite resource, and one we shouldn’t give away without thought.

This is not to say we shouldn’t do those other things. Many of them are things that make life worthwhile. Time with friends and family is precious, as is time to travel, or enrich our lives by volunteering, or taking yoga classes, or studying gourmet cooking. But don’t put your creative time last on your schedule.

I really wish I could say I caught myself, but if I am going to be honest here I must admit I didn’t. My friend, a very successful writer and a dear friend of more than 30 years, caught me and called me on it. Can’t say it was a pleasant experience – it almost never is when someone you love calls you on your own BS – but they were right to do it. I needed the reminder.

I know I will make this mistake again, and my friend won’t always be around to catch me on it. My hope is that by sharing my failure here it will serve as a reminder in the future, because I really don’t have all the time in the world.

And how do we protect that creative time? Well, that’s a topic for another day. For now we just have be vigilant, to choose when and where to give away our time and guard against those unthinking impulses.

How Did We Get Here

 The impetus for this project was one of those moments of serendipity where all the pieces kind of fall together. It was the product of more than a year of planning combined with things you never expected.

Allow me to back up and explain how I got here.

I was born in a small town… No, that’s too far back.

{This caveman statue is from my actual hometown of Grants Pass, Oregon)

After my divorce… Huh-uh. Still not there.

I sold my first novel… Oh, for heaven’s sake, Chris, hurry up!

All right, flash forward another 20-plus years.

I had been flirting with the idea of retirement for several years; actively looking for solutions to several stumbling blocks, including some complicated medical insurance issues. (That last is going to come up regularly throughout this series.) I'd made spreadsheets and run what-if scenarios until my brain threatened to explode.

I went to Las Vegas where I worked as hotel liaison and administrator for an intensive writers’ workshop, a job I’d done for this particular conference for several years.

At the end of the conference as I was preparing to rush home and back to work I had a very clear realization: If I retired I wouldn’t have to worry about how fast I got home.

I wouldn’t be tied to someone else’s schedule.

I went home with a very clear goal: Retire before the next workshop.

I gave myself the year, told my boss informally that I was working toward my goal, and began preparing my department for my departure. At the same time I began preparing myself for a major lifestyle change. Six months later I handed in my formal notice, giving the company six months to replace me and I turned my attention to my personal preparations.

Today I am at this year’s version of that workshop, and I am retired. {Note: This post was initially written before the pandemic. Group gatherings were not yet as issue.}

It hasn’t really hit me yet and probably won’t until after I get home and don’t have to get up and go to work. Right now I am doing something not that much different from what I have done in the past.

And thus the years of planning brought me to the point of retirement.

The second part of this is the serendipity. That’s a kind of magic you can’t predict, you can only be open to possibilities and hope it happens.

During the workshop, the staff act as hosts for lunch tables, talking with different groups of attendees about whatever is on their minds.

My lunch groups knew I had just retired from my “day job” and sat at my table precisely so they could ask me about how I did it. The fact that there were several people following my journey, looking for answers and guidance, brought home to me that there were people who wanted to know how I did it.

These conversations brought up several more questions, like:

1.   Relationships. Retirement changes every relationship, but when a creative – or their non-creative partner - retires there are even more complications.

2.   Schedules. A job that requires you to get out of bed and leave the house every day for literally thousands of days gives a structure to your life. When those limitations go away, when every hour of the day is a possible time for creating, you can get overwhelmed with choice.

3.   Limits. A corollary of schedules. When the alarm clock no longer dictates bedtime, how do you choose where to stop?

4.   Funding. Many creative endeavors have an actual monetary cost, for supplies, classes, tools. Budgeting for those expenses when your income is reduced can be a challenge.

5.   Goals. Retirement means a huge reassessment of career and life goals. For many years retirement has been the ultimate pot of gold and now it's here. You need to find your next goal.

6.   Estate Planning. For a creative, estate planning goes far beyond what most people face in retirement. Stock portfolios, real estate, collectible cars or paintings or stamps can be handled by established, generally easily-available professionals. Managing your art (of whatever kind) requires specialized knowledge, and experienced, trustworthy experts can be difficult to find.

7.   Hard Conversations. Talking to your family about what happens with your estate can be much more difficult for a creative. It isn’t just about possessions, it’s about art that embodies part of you. Families often don’t want to talk about what happens after you are gone, and doubly so when it’s something that is so much a part of you.

These are just the topics that have come up within the last couple days. I am sure that each of you reading this will have other questions, other topics for us to consider.

Let’s go on this journey together. Tell me what you’re concerned about, and I promise to share with you honestly success and failure. My life isn’t really a string of Instagram-ready moments. It’s messy, and full of pitfalls and potholes. I will try not to sugar-coat the lows, to pretend that I don’t fail regularly. I will also try not to downplay the successes. That's probably even harder for me; I was taught not to "show off." But it there's a strategy that works, or a step in the right direction I promise to tell you about it.

I hope that will help us all navigate the unknown waters ahead.