Contrasts

My mother often asks me what I am doing now that I am retired. At first I felt the need to quantify my newly found discretionary time as if my worth depended upon such things. Now, I just reply, "It's the same as summer." She'll nod her head and let it go at that. In reality, I am discovering that my retirement is not quite the same as summer. Certainly, summer for a teacher can be filled with more discretionary time but I know for a fact that a teacher preparing to go back in the ring the following fall is always plagued with getting-one-more-thing-done syndrome. There is a driven quality embedded in those summer hours and all too soon the calendar screams, "It's time."

What makes retirement different from summer for me, besides the obvious fact that I am not bound by contractual hours anymore, is that I am seeing things. Not in a psychedelic way, albeit I am a child of the 60's, but in a I'm-not-like-a-crazed-rat anymore. I find myself observing interesting juxtapositions around me and here are a couple I observed last week.

I spend a fair amount of time in the produce aisles at my local grocery store due to the perishability of such goods. Pre-retirement, I was dependent upon a rather surly produce guy who drew the short straw of working the early morning Saturday shift. I learned to fend for myself rather than elicit a grunt or two from him. Now, I have connected with an affable produce gentleman who immediately shares with me where the freshest spinach and such are stacked. Apparently, he has seen me rifle through my share of packages, squinting at the "Use by" dates all the way. A few feet away from the produce man is the tightly wound potato chip guy. He is a well-groomed upper-middle-aged man with a slim build and an I-just-want-to-retire vibe screeching from his being. He whips those Wavy chip bags around like they just killed his sister and I have yet to see him smile or say thank-you to one of his best customers. Surely, he is not going to guide me to the freshest date on his products. And surely, I'm not going to ask.

My favorite one-stop-shop pharmacy presented another interesting set of contrasts. Nestled in among the 70% off Christmas detritus is a newly set up garden seed display, beckoning folks with dreams of spring, never mind the fact that the wind chill is currently below zero, the snow continues to swirl, the ground is frozen solid and we are in a gardening zone of 4, on a good day. I suspect the serious gardeners with greenhouses and the tenacious science teachers doing seed experiments are always glad to see the seed displays set up early. I have no immediate need for seeds but the display still gave me a pleasant pause. Another pause was given to the calendar display nearby. Instead of the usual kitties, puppies and scenic themes, the prominent calendar was for the Walking Dead. Somehow, a calendar  filled with photos of zombies, ashen-faced beings and apocalyptic terror seems like a sullen way to march oneself through the days of the year.

 I'll stick with seed display, thank you.