Lying on my back the other day, gazing up at a clear sky, I watched a plane zip open the gossamer blue leaving a fraying white gash. Where was it going, vandalising the atmosphere like that as it made its purposeful way?
My horizontal perspective was a luxurious one at that moment. While others laboured, I reclined in the sun, it’s warmth a salve for my ageing bones. I could calmly reflect on all that is going wrong in the world while enjoying my little part of and time in it. Daily I celebrate my own good fortune, count my blessings and am deeply grateful for them; but I’m unsettled too.
It’s September. Seven years ago I was relishing the fact of not having to do Enrolment Week. While my colleagues who had not been made redundant or ‘early retired’ worked to get new students’ bums onto college seats, Gareth and I took off like birds to Pembrokeshire. The weather was glorious, as it is so often in the first weeks of September when kids and teachers go back to school and college staff have to work from dawn to dusk to fill up their courses. Wow, it was a nice feeling to be free of all that!
Seven years later I still have that ‘Back to School’ association with September. The end-of-summer feeling now includes the relief of a quieter caravan park (nice!) but there are still the residual feelings of anxiety that hang over, probably from my earliest years, of having to step back into the educational labyrinth. My little grandsons seem to be taking it in their stride, but who knows what their associations with it all will be when they are in their sixties.
I have lots of nice early associations, of course, like the smell of a new leather satchel, shiny new shoes and a smart gabardine coat. Going back to school when I was a child wasn’t traumatic; at least not until I moved up to secondary school, but that’s another story.
Now, in retirement, September, for me, is a month like any other. It’s almost a year since we sold Bay View, packed up our stuff and set out on our new lifestyle. It has been delightful, with travel and with lots of time for me to dabble in new things. (I like the word ‘dabble’. It conveys very nicely the idea of someone like me just playing, not very seriously, with a novelty of some sort) But, I haven’t mastered anything new and my days are becoming increasingly aimless. I’m wondering whether I miss the kick-into-action that was September and without the B&B business either I no longer really have a routine. “Freedom, then to have much of, yes?” (a bit of Yoda, there, ahem) The lovely summer that we’ve had is starting to give way to grey skies, the evenings are closing in and even my walks with the dogs are starting to feel a bit monotonous.
Now I’m aware that some of you might be thinking, “You contrary mare! Not long ago you were singing the praises of your new lifestyle and now, apparently, you’re bored!” Well, I can’t help it if I have the sort of personality that is up one minute and down the next. It’s my Celtic DNA.
Yes, I am a bit bored, or at any rate feeling somewhat aimless, or Purposeless. I use a capital ‘P’ there because beyond the obvious day-to-day purposes I haven’t found my Passion (note the capital ‘P’ again). A quote from someone who recently died, has stuck with me - “Don’t ask someone what they do; ask what is their passion”. He has left this world with that thought firmly implanted in others, Gareth and me included.
Trouble is, I don’t know how I’d answer that question. What is my Passion? I’m not sure I’m a passionate person. I’ve had my moments of passion (we won’t go there!) but as for ‘having a Passion’, well…………..
The other day I read a short article about the importance of doing nothing. It was dealing with the culture of having to be (or at least appearing to be) busy. In the working world the culture is endemic. The writer was making the point that the biggest and best ideas usually come to us when we are relaxed or doing something completely different; disengaged from the ‘big machine’. And this is true; Eureka moments often happen in the bath as they did for what’s-his-name…….? Archimedes, was it? But when you’re ‘retired’, what is there to have Eureka moments about? Maybe it’ll come to me…… (lol)
Well, we don’t have a bath in the caravan, so I have to hope that a nice shower will inspire me instead. As it happens I now recall something else I read recently. It was something along the lines of NOT having to have big ideas or do big things to feel purposeful. Perhaps it’s a delusion to feel that individually we are important and here on this planet to fulfil a purpose. And while I admire those who are so passionate about something that it’s all they live for (let’s face it, even passionate stamp-collectors are an insurance against historical losses of the postage stamp kind), some passions are more like that plane I watched; tearing up the atmosphere and leaving toxic fumes behind. Terrorists are passionate, after all!
But without being sarky, not everyone can find something to be passionate about. While there are some remarkable people with amazing passion and drive - the world changers - an awful lot of us are passengers. Some of us may be back-seat drivers, I guess, but there are pedestrians too and hitch-hikers……… ok, you get my drift. Without labouring that analogy, some of us, maybe most of us, help the world to keep going by just getting on with the mundane; being unremarkable and stoic rather than passionate.
So Instead of worrying about what big Purpose I should be following, and whether I will have the passion for it I should just get on with loving life, trying to be kind, passing on love and smiles, living lightly and humbly, peaceably, gratefully and with whatever small meanings I can attach to each day. But if in the meantime I have an epiphany of some sort…..I’ll let you know.
By the way, my mother used to enjoy a quiz programme on TV called Pointless. A couple of times recently I have seen a version of it in which the contestants are ‘celebrities’. The programme’s title is “Pointless Celebrities”. I love the irony in that!
