This was morning was a lazy one. The mobile alarm went off to indicate that it was time for me to get ready for my early morning swim and I rejected its peremptory tone, as I rejected the beeping from my watch. There are some mornings where to stay in bed is simply more convincing that going to the local pool.
However, that does mean that I feel the accusation of a version of the Protestant Work Ethic about something I have not done that I ought to have done, and there is no health in me - once learned, the language of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer (old style) does not leave you – even if your faith does.
It does mean however, that if I fail to do my lengths, I have to do something to justify my indolence. This does not entail my going out into the world and doing good works, but rather thinking about getting one (or fewer) outstanding tasks done.
When you are retired, how you fill your days (apart from the necessary elements of ordinary life like shopping, eating and cleaning) are pretty much up to you. Which means that success and completion are very much yours for the interpretation. If you decide that one of the major elements in a satisfyingly filled day is the writing of this blog, then who is to gainsay your achievement!
In talking to a colleague who has returned from holiday and is about to start a new term in the school that is next to the pool, she vouchsafed to me that my commiserations were falling on deaf ears because she was “looking forward to the routine” that a timetable offers.
While intellectually I can understand such sentiments, I cannot sympathise with them. I fall into the category of teachers who say of retirement, “I cannot understand how I ever found time to teach” given the way that elements in their retired lives fill up their days.
It is very often a case of “in place of” superseding “as well as” in the dynamics of a retired life. I often give the example of trying to deal with things external to school when I was in teaching. You have a timetable and a number of free periods with breaks and lunch. If you need to phone an outside agency, then you have to wait for an opportunity in your timetabled day and do it then. If you need a response, then you have to tell the people you are dealing with that you will only be able to respond withing a fairly tight clock-defined period of time. If they phone later than say 11.35 am, you will not be available because you will be teaching. Few outside agencies seemed to understand the constraints on your free access to communication and were mystified when a call at 11.45 am went unanswered. Admittedly this was in the era pre-mobile phone use, but the principle is still the same.
Similarly, medical appointments had to be fitted into a school day that caused the least difficulties for colleagues and teaching periods, whereas now in my retired state I turn up when they ask and other things take second place.
The set elements in my timetable are concerts, opera, family events, and medical appointments. As if to demonstrate this, I have just checked my phone and there is a message from my dentist saying that I need to make an appointment. To be fair, there is an element of choice in this appointment, I can suggest a range of times and days and the dentist is usually accommodating.
My appointments with doctors are less flexible. I am now firmly fixed in the automatic schedule of appointments and follow-up consultations, and I am far too grateful to the Catalan medical system to suggest alternatives. Luckily by concerts and operas are all at the weekend, so they never interfere with the doctor appointments. The medical establishment in this country has been more than generous with their time and expertise and so the very least I can do is fit in with their arrangements and express gratitude. This is one occasion when I appreciate the force and necessity of an automatically generated timetable for diagnosis and follow-up supervision.
I weave my interests around the distractions that play fast and loose with my determination. But I am aware of what I should be doing and I understand that there is more than enough of what I could call ‘work’ if I cared to, but which is in reality me exploiting my freedom to do pretty much as I like with the time that is not now taken up by paid employment.
I like to think that I do not waste my time, though the use to which I put it, might be considered individualistic, to put it mildly.
But it keeps me off the streets and harms few! Surely that is a life being well spent!
