Walking

Most dogs, not all, but most that I see on my daily walks look like they have this happy sort of grin on their face and they’re going to come over and say hi. A few seem angry, and others seem so caught up in the pure joy of being outside that I often never get more than a glance. I thing dogs, and dog walkers are an almost universally friendly lot.

People are different. Most men I meet avoid eye contact, and I wonder if this is some kind of alpha male conditioning thing going on. I am guilty of this myself. If you make eye contact with them you either got to say something friendly, or pick a fight (well maybe not but you catch my drift). It’s easier to ignore them, right?

Some people, and my wife is one of them, walks fast. Others, and I am one of these, tend to be much slower in their daily jaunts. I will amuse myself by counting various things I see on my walk, how many birds I see and what type, how many times I turn or change directions, and generally try and immerse myself in the experience. A walk is never just a walk

When I walk I have courses I have laid out and never vary from them. Currently I have a 1.5 mi, 2 mi, and a 3 mi course. Now that I am retired and walking everyday I anticipate adding a 4 mi course at some point.

Walking is exercise, but it’s more than that, or it can be.

Still In The Game

Typing and having Parkinsons can be a challenge. Fingers need to move rapidly, which happens to be something that my Parkinsons specifically rails against. I have tweaked my system settings to inhibit keys repeating if they are held down too long, and that helps a bit, but errors caused by my recalcitrant fingers still creep in. Interestingly, all of this improves as the day goes on. By the evening I have taken all my doses of my medications and things are noticeably better. I find that a little perverse. Maybe I should adjust my circadian rhythm? Even so, I can’t complain. I have been diagnosed for almost four years now and my visible symptoms are still light enough that you likely wouldn’t know I was dealing with this disease.

Speaking of typing, writing is something I spar with. I had a long running blog that I finally quit posting to somewhere around 2010 when my life was too much with me to keep it up. Writing every day definitely improved my ability to put words together, but I was no poet. That ability has atrophied, and I am just now finding the time to pick it up again. We’ll see how it goes huh?

Back to my Parkinsons though. The only other visible symptoms that may be noticeable are balance issues that have started to creep in. Balance is something that cannot be fixed through medication so if it gets worse I will be using a cane and hope I don’t end up in a wheelchair. I also have an issue with talking. Yes, my voice is whisper soft, but also, and this one is a bit weird, sometimes the words don’t come. They are in my brain, and it is trying to make my voice box work, but the signals aren’t being received. Fun huh? Both of those are still only minor annoyances.

I am most grateful that I am still in the game.

My Eyes Don’t Open Wide Enough

I had ADD before it was known to be a thing. I breezed through school never doing any homework and was a solid C student. The only thing that saved me was I always did well on tests, and I happen to be a bit smart.

Once I entered the professional world I found out I could no longer coast. A string of screw ups early on in my first job happened that were my fault and I was forced to pay attention to what I was doing. I went through a string of organizational systems starting with Daytimer and ending up with David Allen’s “Getting Things Done,” GTD. The methodology is exhaustive and bulletproof. It is elegant. I started using OmniFocus, a Mac application and stayed with it the rest of my career. It took everything I could throw at it, and I became highly organized.

Entering retirement is forcing me to leave all that behind. Using GTD & Omni Focus in my golden years is like trying to shovel snow off your sidewalk with a road grader. So I am moving to a new system. My current candidate is Ryder Carroll’s Bullet Journal (BuJo). It is a minimalist system. You can do the whole thing in a small notebook. Perfect.

Having said all this, I really don’t have that much to put in there. There is this thing that has always been rattling around in my brain for most of my adult life though. It goes something like this. “If I can just sit down and take the time to think things through, I can get clarity in my life and things will be oh so much simpler.” I got a notebook and set aside a half hour a day for “thinking time.” The notebook and pen were the only technology I allowed myself. I filled the notebook. I had some nice insights. The activity proved, and continues to prove valuable. So did I get the clarity I was seeking? No. I have at times come close though, and I think that is the best any of us can do. Let me close this missive with one of my favorite quotations. “The picture is far too big for you to see kid. Your eyes don’t open wide enough.”

Beginnings Are Hard

I have a quote I got from a friend that puts forth the idea that things always start out messy and over time they come together. I should look it up because it is powerful but this is good enough for this missive. I am entering into retirement and it is new territory for me and I am starting out messy.
The closest I have come, as I have previously mentioned, is when I have been between jobs and I am finding out that is not the same set of motions at all. I am very much unorganized and that is not a good feeling for me. There are a lot of things I want to do, some more important than others, and I need to build a new routine. The complexity is multiplied (by 2) when I add in my dear wife who is facing this same issue and dealing with it in her own fashion. There are two schedules to manage and one of us likes structure and routines and intentions and lists much much more than the other. Understand that none of this presents any insurmountable obstacle, it’s just an observation that I am currently in the messy phase of this affair and it makes me just a bit anxious.

My last routine fell apart because I couldn’t manage fitting my daily routines into the schedule changes (I either had a 7am to 3pm shift or 1pm to 9pm) of a physically demanding retail job. If I were younger I could have done it easily. It came down to a question of managing my energy level so I had enough to work my shift.
So yeah, I will deal with this new phase of my life and all the mess that goes along with it. Structure will emerge over time. Beginnings though, are messy.

Retirement

I am easing into retirement, feeling my way as I go. Their are things I know I want to do in this last phase of my life, like read more, and write more. Other things are on my list that I know I want to get to, but don’t carry the same sense of urgency. Hiking and photography are on that list. The over arching thing though is to be prepared to give an accounting of my life and how I spent my time here when I die and pass over to the other side. In fact, this is not a new thing. I have long had this at the top of my list. It has, in fact, been there as long as I can remember.


I bought a new planner to help keep me focused on this. I am a long time user of the GTD methodology and have used OmniFocus in my implementation. Now that I am retired though it is overkill for me. It still works, it’s just too much. So I am switching to the Bullet Journal “BuJo” methodology. Their are many things I like about the approach. I find the morning and evening reflection that is built into the methodology very appealing. I also like how you can tune the system to meet your specific needs. I envision tuning this system, as I get more comfortable with it to support the routines and goals that will help me end up where I want to be.

Retirement is a blank slate. You can fill your time however you choose. You can spend you last years on the couch in front of a TV or you can lose yourself in service to others, or improve yourself. Or anywhere in between. In a sense it is a true measure of what you have done with your life thus far, your chance to show just how far you have come. I plan on documenting my journey here. Why don’t you join me and come along for the ride?

Meet Up

I think of my brother Larry often. I imagine seeing him walking up to me while I am in the middle of the produce department where I work. He has been dead just over thirty years now but I still remember him like it was a few days ago. In seeing him I realize he is the one who will bring me over, crossing the bridge from life to what comes after. I have no way of knowing if this is true of course. I remember how he stands, the way he would look at me, how he would always call me Joel, distancing himself from our abusive father who had diminutive names for us all.

Sometimes I imagine him walking up to me, standing in front of me. Who is the first to speak? I don’t know. Sometimes I talk to him. I tell him I am sorry he had such a hard life, and that I hope God has made it all up to him, because he deserved far better than what he received. He doesn’t answer me though. I don’t really know what he would say. Not yet.

I talked to my sister this week. She died the same year my brother did, 1993. I tell her I am looking forward to seeing her again. Seeing her without her burden she carried in this life, seeing how beautiful she really is.

I talk to my mom often. I tell her I’m sorry I didn’t come up to see her before she died and I ask her forgiveness. I have deep guilt here. She doesn’t answer me either. So much of me springs from her, what she stood for, the life she lived, the example she set for me, the things that she taught me. Some days I imagine I feel her forgiveness.

I talk to my dad on occasion. There isn’t much to say to him though. Sometimes I forgive him. Sometimes that seems presumptuous because what makes me think he thinks he did anything wrong, and that if he does he is sorry? I still think of him though even so. I feel drawn to him and I don’t know why. Perhaps my heart still yearns for his love, his approval, his treating my like a son he was proud of. Things that never were. Even so I have imagined meeting him. He would come up to me and say something like, “Hello son, I have come to bring you home.” In all my life I have never heard him call me by my given name.

I feel them praying for me, even though they are all long dead now. Does God hear their prayers? I believe He does. I yearn to see them again. They are family and that means something to me even if it doesn’t to anyone else.

And Anna. Did she dance?

Be The One

My current job is in the produce department for a local grocery store that targets foodies and other people who care about the quality they buy. Walking through our department you will notice everything is beautiful. The produce is of the highest quality, and it is presented in a manner that speaks to the standards of those who work there. It is not unusual for customers to come up to me and remark on how nice everything looks. I routinely offer samples to customers of our produce. I have joked in the past that beautiful people shop here.

The garbage shoot is in the back hallway behind Produce. This may surprise you but there is a lot of food thrown away every day. Yes we should donate it to a food bank. We do. As much as they will take, and we still throw away food.

I mention all this because where the department looks amazing the back alley where the garbage shoot is almost always looks like hell. Nobody cares. Now I get that nobody thinks it is their job, but what I don’t get is that people are okay with letting that filth lay there untouched. Similarly the floor of our walk in is disgusting.

No one wants to do this cleaning. So my thought here is, be the one who does the things no one else wants to do. There may not be anything in it for you. It will add nothing to your salary, and would be lost in the rounding error of any evaluation you get. No, do it because it needs to be done. Be the one. Set an example of what it means to be a responsible adult. Show others that it’s okay to do more than you are asked. As far as that goes, if you see someone that is, for example trying to get out the door at the end of their shift, lend them a helping hand. People will notice, but that’s not the point. Well maybe it is, because small acts ok kindness are contagious, they spread like a virus, and others seeing you sweep the back alley before you clock out may start doing such things on their own, and wouldn’t that be something.

Love Others

I believe this is why we exist, irrespective of any belief in deity. I believe we are at our best when we live our life inside out, helping others and not ourselves. It can be as simple as giving them the gift of being heard.

It is my experience that this is an area where you need to take a bit of initiative and be the one to invite a friend out to lunch, or arrange a dinner together. Rarely do I have someone decline an invitation. Having said that I also think it is important to be aware when someone is trying to politely decline.

I believe we exist within the context of our relationships. While the Tennessee Williams quotation is a favorite of mine when he said, “We are all condemned to solitary confinement inside our own skins for life,” I also think it is the relationships we have, and the quality of them that define us, and enrich our lives, and lift us.

I am an introvert. As my years have accumulated I have learned to be outgoing and engaging but I still gain energy, and recover when I am alone. When Rebecca and I are at a party I will run out of energy long before she is ready to go home. She is much more of an extrovert than I, seeming to become more energized as the evening goes on. I have learned though that I am at my best when I am in a small group, and so I seek to create those kinds of situations.

We all have a light within us that shines forth for others to see. It is the essence of what we were born with and every experience we have had, and what we have learned from it. We all can see this in each other. Most of us want to share this, the best of us, with others. Loving others gives us the chance to let them do what they most want to do, and in doing so brighten all of us.

Perhaps you have known someone like this. I know I have. I know people who can light up a room just by walking into it their light burns so brightly. I confess I am not such a person, perhaps you aren’t either, and that’s okay. We don’t have to be.

I have spent my life seeking out friendships, connections, sharing the light within, and seeking to find others willing to do the same. It is always a valuable experience, and every now and then I will come across a rare treasure, someone that I can connect with in a way that is meaningful to me and them. I believe we are at our best when we do this.

Read Widely

My love of reading started when I was very young. My mother would read books to us. Ever since then I have read. Much of my reading, perhaps all of it lol, through my teen and early twenties was for pleasure. Like many guys, I was into fantasy and science fiction.

Once my career started and our family started I branched out and began to read more widely. The “Self Help” genre captivated me as I tried to understand what happened to me in my childhood, and looked for tools to help me deal with my life. This led me into Tao and Zen Buddhism which I view not as religions but more as a way to govern your life. More recently I have expanded my reading to histories and biographies and narrative non fiction.

When my dad died in 2013 I got much of his library. One of the first books I read was “Plutarch’s Lives”. Plutarch was a Greek who wrote a biography of a famous Greek, and a famous Roman, and then compared the two. The book is over 500 pages of small print double column. It remains one of my more valuable reads.

Reading widely gives you context for your life and the world wow live in. It allows you to look at the current political environment in the world and our country today and understand this has happened before in the past. We remember reading how it worked out before and can see the same type of thing happen again. The most dangerous thing, in my opinion, is to take action, voting, without this context. Without this context we are much more likely to be swayed by the sophists who are best at putting together a thirty second sound bite to convince us to hate the bad guys and vote for them.

Reading widely helps you understand your own life. We are not unique. The problems we experience have been experienced by others. Someone has already lived through what you are going through now, and they have written a book about it. You don’t have to struggle to find out the truth. You can read their book and stand on their shoulders and move forward.

I would suggest setting aside a time to read every day. Twenty minutes before you go to bed will do, though you can devote much more time if you choose and do so when it fits. I would also therefore suggest always having a book to read with you.

I feel this is one of the most important things a person can do. If you are not reading regularly I think you are functionally illiterate.

The Power of Routine

The power of this routine begins to take hold on me. On the one hand it is a bit silly. It is a list of eight or ten things I do every morning. Sometimes they seem almost random and the thought occurs to me, “Really? Why did I pick these things?” But I did them all this morning when a part of me didn’t want to, especially the walk part at the end. No, this is powerful.

It makes me think whether I have the best things in this routine. Could I improve upon this? Just how much upward space do I have really? This is heady stuff for the Ridge Walker. My life is anchored on just this single thing. I have said publicly if I could go back to young Joel and give him just one piece of advice that he would pay attention to and take to heart it would be to implement a routine in his life that contains a small number of carefully selected things that he would do every day for the rest of his life. If I were allowed one other thing, I would give him the first item to include on the list. Meditation.

This morning I was gripped by fatigue and I didn’t want to start the morning routine. Two hours later I am sitting here writing this missive which is currently the last thing on the list.

This month I have been practicing daily meditation for five years. I have been closing my day out with reading. I could go through the other things that are in my routines, I have a morning and evening one. The contents are fluid. I continue to try new things, and drop things off that don’t seem to fit at the moment. It is almost an obsession. I have been doing this for over three decades.

My life is about making the best version of myself that I can. I have always been this way. I came into this life wired with this as my focus. All my dad did was give me a bit of a nudge in a direction I was already headed. Reaching the top in my career wasn’t as important as this, neither was any measure of worldly success. I once told one of my sons, “When the journey is over, I will be complete.” He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and said, “When you are complete the journey will be over.” That sentiment seems more than a little filled with hubris now. I will be content if I can die a good man, one who loved and lifted those around him.