Part Of Me Wants To Be Left Alone So I Can Retire In Peace

Last week I hit another year’s marker on my way may through the decade as an octogenarian. Part of me is still ready for any venture that comes in my path. But part of me just wants to be left to retire in peace.

The end of graduate school in the 1950s brought me face to face with America’s struggle to secure civil and voting rights for all her citizens. Then came the persistent call for me to do what I could to help bring an end to the war against Vietnam. That summons consumed me for the next decades, and took me to the legal boundaries—and even beyond. I have often related stories of my involvement at the heart of that struggle, including a frightening encounter with a Chicago grand jury. Women’s rights, economic justice and climate change have been among my foci in more recent years. And now we are faced with a disastrous national Administration headed by an ignorant prevaricating egomaniac.

Closer to home, I am involved in my retirement community in an effort to continue our hundred year emphasis on providing a home for those who have spent their working years in religious or charitable not-for-profit agencies, particularly persons with limited financial resources.

All of these concerns have involved struggles which are both vigorous and tiring. Many of my neighbors among our 300 community members just want a quiet peaceful retirement without conflict. And that is also what part of me longs for. Among the escapes from my focus on the above named struggles has been watercolor painting. Every year I produce a few new paintings from which I make and sell hundreds of greeting cards. The money earned is dedicated to a fund offering support for members of our community who are short of needed financial resources.

Everything these days takes more time. Buttoning a shirt can be a twenty-minute exercise. So I work more slowly, and now need to spend 26 to 30 hours a week producing these 700 word efforts. By the time I choose the topic, do the research, draft and rewrite and rewrite again, work with my proofreader, rewrite some more, send them to the places where they are published, dispatch about 400 to e-mail recipients, and write back to thoughtful responders, the week is gone. No, I haven’t gotten rich from all this effort. In fact I have never earned a cent. But alas, my art has suffered and I have not made a single brush stroke for months, so I long to get back to my watercolors

I began to submit these columns eight years ago, and except for 4-6 weeks every summer, I have not missed a weekly deadline. A comment occasionally comes from critics suggesting it may be time for me to hang it up. When these opinion pieces of mine are no longer of value, or when my mind has skidded to a halt, I have good friends who will tell me that it is time to quit. But that day has not yet arrived.

Perhaps it is delusional on my part, but I believe these mostly political comments need to be made. I do not believe that we should hold our peace and let Donald Trump do whatever massages his ego. I continue to believe that the distortions inherent in his understanding of America are tragically misguided. I may not be around to observe what might happen as he continues to devalue and distort the American dream, but my grandchildren will live with the effects. So for their sake—and perhaps for yours I am driven to continue with this effort a bit longer.