Leisure Time

Time is the gift of retirement.

Only, I’m discovering it’s not the vista of another lifetime, another ten or fifteen years, that’s important. It’s the recovery of all the minutes lost to work in a day.

I have breathing problems which means some nights I’m a restless sleeper. I couldn’t get up to do something useful until I could sleep. I couldn’t afford to fully wake up. I had to lay there remembering the countries of Africa to force myself to sleep. Wasted time.

I’d wake later than usual. I had to economize to be on time. Instead of fully remaking the bed, I’d settle for pulling up the covers. It saved a few seconds.

After breakfast, I couldn’t afford the time for the water to run hot. I’d leave the pan to soak. I’d didn’t have time to run a cloth over the counter to clean any crumbs. I couldn’t be late.

There was no time to empty the dishwasher. It slowly became the cupboard for the most commonly used dishes.

I’d go back to the bedroom, look at what needed to go into the laundry basket. That was a walk to another room. It could wait.

Slowly, without really being noticed, things got a bit seedy. Christmas breaks became times to catch up on chores. Only, with my last job, I even had to work a couple days the week everyone else was off. Things got grimmer.

And now, while I wait for the hot water to run, I take a sponge and clean a counter. Another day, the freezer top.

I’ve made no great effort to clean the house, simply fallen back into old routines.

The oldest recovered routine may be the habit of walking. I always had to walk when I was a student - to grade school, junior high and high school. In college I often rode a bike because the Michigan State campus was so large. When I was a graduate student, I rarely took a bus because I didn’t have enough money and it was often faster to walk in Philadelphia.

Then I started to work. Jobs were never near where I lived. I had to drive. Somehow, I wouldn’t think about walking anywhere when I got home. There was always something that had to be done in the house. The yard became a substitute for being outdoors.

Now I can walk each day, though rarely even a mile. One cannot recover youth. The body has changed. Muscles need retraining.

But still, other habits are being recovered that had been submerged so long they’d become part of some past life. The willingness, nay the desire, to walk to the top of a mountain or the end of an arroyo, not settle for the familiar.

Leisure time is very real, and not at all what people tell you it will be.

Nasturtiums before and after last week’s freeze.