Below is the blog that I wrote at the end of my last month long vacation at home in Singaraja. I start on my last vacation as a teacher in a few days. I’ll be back home in Singaraja again to see my eldest daughter and give her a little relief from the difficulties of being 16 and pretty much on her own, as well as meeting again with my visa agent to give him my documents so that he can get the retirement visa process started.
As I wrote recently on one of my blogs(
http://lifeinthetropics.wordpress.com), I’ve just realized that the somewhat disordered intellectual/emotional state that I’ve been in recently can be attributed to a sense of liminality.
So with the Last Last Dance in Bali coming up soon to be followed by the Last Dance in Sumbawa, I thought that I would post this for those who may be entering the “retirement” stage of life, and are having some similar feelings.
The Last Dance in Bali
Well, not all that extreme, but it feels what? Less than desirable. I’m up for an extended period of writing and thinking. I had a job once as a research associate many years ago in Berkeley. My first task was to take three months, read a number of books and articles about research methodology and education.
I asked what was I supposed to do after I finished reading? The project director said, “Think!” Hmm? I said, Think about what? He replied, “Think about what you read and how you can use it in the field. Come back in three months and tell me what you figured out.” That’s it? I replied. I was more than a little perplexed at that point. “You’re going to be a paid intellectual worker now,” Don said with a smile that was as charming as I’ve ever seen. “Enjoy!’
I am that stage again, although this time I won’t be getting paid. I’ve relished the last month of mixing manual labor (learning how to repair plumbing, fixing windows, building wind proofing for my built-in closets), parenting on my own for the first half of the vacation (cooking, cleaning, checking homework, answering questions about school and the world), writing (working on a second draft of the novel I wrote 20 years ago) and writing (blogs and websites) and writing (letters and notes for a book on Islam) and podcasting and just thinking about how all of it is going to fit in to a new adventure, and what can I do in the last part of my life to make the world a better place for my children and grandchildren.
Yes, so as much as I love teaching, it’s time to take a step back (or forward) and see what’s next.
My youngest son, Sam, has shown a new interest in snorkeling. He’s snorkeled before but only on the shore messing around with his sisters, cousins, and friends. This time he asked if he could go out in the deeper water with me. I haven’t done much snorkeling here over the past nine years for a variety of reasons, mostly because the coral was all dead and there were few fish to be seen. So we went out a few days ago, and the coral is regenerating; it’s still nothing like 18 years ago when I first snorkeled off the shore here in front of the house, but it’s slowly coming back and with it the fish. I hope this is a good sign of things to come.
We went out the farthest off shore today where the bottom suddenly falls off and all you can see is deep blue. That was a bit frightening for Sam; I could feel him move closer to me until he was gripping my arm so we moved back in towards shore a bit. But even after all this time of not snorkeling, I could remember the best spots for the fish - just off to the west of the house almost in front of bridge just down the beach road. And there they were – thousands of fish of all sizes and colors and a long yellow eel who was not too pleased to see us, and a tiny blue moray hidden away in a blond piece of new coral.
So what is it that I’ll do in another five months? What won’t I do? The problem is going to be fitting in everything, getting organized and sticking to a schedule (oh, but one of the things that I want to experience is a different sense of time) – alternating the book on Islam with the novel with the blogs with the podcasting with the house repairs with the parenting with the exploration of the sea with the visiting of friends with the letters to family with the classes I want to take on marine biology with the save the planet projects (save the cheerleader, save the world) with the development of the website to make it more useful to teachers with the looking for freelance writing jobs with the exploring of Singaraja. It should be amazing.
