Occupation: Retired

 

Recently, unbeknownst to all but a handful of Alan Williamson insiders, I threw myself into one of the greatest challenges facing civilized men and women the world over: Filling retirement with purpose while pursuing the freedom to fart around. After a transitional period of blind wheel spinning and reckless snacking, I hit the restart button on my life and did the following.

I Embraced Minimalism.

What is minimalism you ask? There are many definitions, but for me it came down to choosing quality over quantity and eliminating the surplus debris that had accumulated around me through the years.  My music collection, for example, took some deep cuts with Paul Simon, Bob Seger and Van Morrison among the survivors, while Sheena Easton, Enya, and Sounds of the Everglades said sayonara.

Winnowing the book collection was an even bigger task, requiring a level of tough love normally reserved for parents ousting live-at-home children for irreconcilable unemployment. After some careful consideration, I kept the books that were under 400 pages and cast aside the rest. While this may sound like an arbitrary choice, you should know that my favorite book genre is the short story. In fact, when I get a book of short stories, I flip through it and read the shortest stories first. Sometimes I never get around to reading the longer short stories. Some may call this lazy. I call it a great love of short stories. The shorter short stories.

We Bought A Lake House.

After decades of living in the fragile habitat holding too much humanity called South Florida, my wife Sherry and I decided to sell our home and find an oasis of sanity and serenity elsewhere in Florida. What we found instead were places that were once unspoiled hideaways, but now were traffic-clogged growth areas. Then there was the other extreme: towns that are so off the beaten path and cheerless that even the cows were alcoholics.

One night as I scrolled through the latest listings on Zillow, the holy grail of housing appeared: a lakefront charmer on an oversized lot priced to move.  I knew that properties of this quality and value were rare but decided to keep a cool head so as not to weaken my negotiating power. After looping Sherry into the situation, I casually called our realtor and with a nonchalance bordering on indifference spoke these noncommittal words: “THIS HOUSE, OUR HOUSE, MUST HAVE!!”

Beating other buyers out was surprisingly easy – a little luck and timing go a long way.  Condensing 30 years of stuff to downsize into a smaller home is a different story. We donated, sold or threw out about 25 percent of our material possessions, which left 80 boxes of belongings to bring along. As I write this months after the move, 12 boxes remain unpacked, their contents the subject of only mild curiosity to Sherry and I. In other words, they’ve taken a backseat to other priorities, such as getting away from it all.

We Took A Road Trip.

When you’ve been through a major uprooting of your life and landed in uncharted territory where you know nothing and no one, the next logical thing to do is hit the road again. So we loaded up the SUV and drove through six states to visit Sherry’s family in Michigan. Road trips, of course, aren’t as efficient as flying, but as new retirees we had the luxury of slowing down and taking the scenic route. If you have the bad timing of driving through a major city like Atlanta or Cincinnati during rush hour, you will slow down to the point where it becomes possible to leave your car, tour a local museum or historic site, and return in time to drive another 10 to 12 feet.

Sherry and I have a system on long trips that works exceptionally well. We drive in three-hour shifts stopping to refuel, stretch our legs and use the restrooms. For the sake of our mental health, we have an agreement not to speak about anything we see in the restrooms, unless it involves an unsolved mystery where we might be able to collect some reward money.

During drive time, when either of us starts to fade behind the wheel, we take a slug from Sherry’s dad’s old coffee Thermos that keeps the java piping hot for 24 hours or 1,200 miles – whichever comes first. It’s always good for a laugh when we stop into a McDonald’s or Dunkin Donuts to get the Thermos refilled and the millennial behind the counter looks at it like we’ve given him a spare part that broke off from the space shuttle.

I Started Writing Again.

When we returned home from our travels, I was in the middle of writing a grocery list when it hit me. I missed writing. Not grocery lists specifically, but observations and reflections grounded in real-life experiences. Okay, also some shameless clowning and gratuitous wordplay.

The thing is, after decades of writing professionally, I discovered that it’s fun to do it as a retired guy. Maybe somewhere down the line this writing life could lead to diminishing returns, my vocabulary reduced to words that rhyme with “warthog.”

For now, I’m content to gaze out at the lake and wait for the words to flow. Salt Log? Art Blog?

“Honey… is there any coffee left in your dad’s Thermos?”

 

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