Retirement

Retirement was a mixed blessing, as all major life transitions tend to be. She’d been studying fungi and teaching biology for so many years, her whole life had been organized around the familiar routine of lesson plans, faculty meetings, departmental crises, grant-writing, research, grading, and of course the mentoring of students that provided her fuel for everything else. The travel bug had kept her explorations of the world expansive, challenged to fit in all the new discoveries she dreamed of into a few short vacation weeks each summer. She’d been smart to stay physically active since grade school, when track and field meets surprised her with the pull to run and jump faster and farther than anyone else. Her daily runs were the single thing that justified her allowance for all things chocolate, although the heavily disciplined guardrails went up against overindulgence during times of stress.

But now, everything was up for an overhaul; all of her usual routines subject to re-examination and renovation. Time to free her already relatively free spirit into a future unbounded by anyone else’s schedule, or tenure requirements, or grant deadlines. Plus, of course, the dreaded office hour visits by students who were desperate for the grades that would retain their scholarships but who weren’t interested in doing the work to earn those grades. This isn’t stress, she thought to herself, this is Freedom: freedom from having an Endowed Chair in the Biology Department. Job security had been its blessing but the responsibilities that accompanied her position as a senior faculty member had shackled her to that same chair.

A piece of chocolate cake seemed like a really good idea.

She recalled a graduation bash thrown last spring by one of her favorite undergrads, a true biology enthusiast who had not only deserved his undergrad scholarship; he’d already started graduate study in embryology at Stanford. A self-taught chef in addition to being a natural behind the microscope, he had singly assembled all the food served at the gathering, from smoked salmon canapés to a sumptuous chocolate cheesecake dessert. The memory of that cake slice made her mouth water. Really, any kind of chocolate cake would do, right about now. But no, she thought, I can’t go down that road. Besides which, this isn’t stress. This is a blank slate!

So, instead of cake, she went out and bought new art supplies, arranging them carefully around the perimeter of her workbench. A blank sketchpad, acrylics, brushes, colored pencils, rollerball pens with glittery ink. Stars appeared on the paper, vivid blue stars outlined in silver; spiky orange stars with tulip buds in their centers; gently sloping emerald green stars that dripped lavender tears. This is Freedom, she thought. No stress here. Three hours later she got up from the old mahogany table that she’d converted it to her new art space, leaving behind its previous incarnation as a stage for home dissections and insect identification.

A nap seemed like a really good idea.

She sipped a cup of Lapsang souchong while staring disinterestedly at the pile of mail that had accumulated since her retirement party. I’m free, she thought, ignoring the lump in her throat and returning to the art table. Vines appeared on the paper. Deep purple vines with bones woven through them, whale vertebrae and the toe bones of mole rats, an armadillo shell, some bear claws. The vines grew on the page and in her dreaming. The bones of her ancestors came alive as her head bent down to the desktop and her eyes closed. Her tears mingled with the acrylic colors and splayed across the page, bones dancing and vines twisting in pirouettes of memory, possibility, passion, terror, hope and bottomless grief.

Screaming seemed like a really good idea, but screaming became dreaming as sleep overtook anguish.

When she awoke the vines on the page had eaten up the bones and soaked up the colors. She was clothed in a gown made from the forest and graced with the songs of unseen beings. She took hold of the clasp made of pewter that held her shawl in place, gently pressing the hook away so the shawl fell to the ground and her woodland garb flowed free.

Retirement seemed like a really good idea.