musings | Change Is Hard

March 4, 2016
by dawnkinster 23 Comments

What’s it like?

Quite a view.

People ask me some version of this all the time. “What’s it like to be retired?” The question is both easy and very difficult to answer. “It’s wonderful!” is the quick, and truthful, response.

But what’s it like?

I know retirement is different for everyone. But for me the sensation is like being weightless. Light. Timeless. It seems filled with infinite everything. Though of course I know intellectually that’s not true, the infinite everything part anyway.

Snowstorms no longer keep me up at night wondering how I’m going to get to work. Weekends have no meaning, in fact I rarely know what day it is. Time is both elastic, stretching out into the future and moving so fast that my old life seems like a movie staring someone else.

I feel a bit suspended, both in time between chapters in my life and way above the world just watching, as though I’m an archivist taking note of events that somehow have no direct impact on me. Which, intellectually I also know is not true.

A more solid answer, one that would have fewer eyes rolling, would be to describe a day in the life of a newly retired me. I’m sitting here in the breakfast room scanning in photos that my mom had stored in a box high in a closet for many years. They’re mostly photos of all of us as kids, school pictures, formal sittings for church photos, snapshots of random moments that didn’t make it into an album. I’m truly lost in time.

And I’m not at work in a beige cubicle. I’m not turning down loans, not arguing with brokers, not attending meetings, not pushing production. Not working weekends. Not commuting in rush hour. No, instead I’m sitting in a sunny room surrounded by the faces of my family. And my view from this work station is spectacular. Sunshine, brilliant white snow, birch trees, blue skies, puffy clouds. Don’t think I don’t know how lucky I am.

So what’s retirement like?

The truth is it’s indescribable. I guess you’ll have to experience it for yourself to understand, and I hope you all have that opportunity sooner than you think. Based on experience I can tell you it will be here in the blink of an eye.

And you’re going to love it.

Pretty

March 1, 2016
by dawnkinster 17 Comments

Scanning memories

Technology. It frustrates me, confuses me, tests my patience, pushes my buttons. I’m not even on the learning curve but usually somewhere far behind it. So I’m feeling pretty progressive these days as I help a friend scan her family photos. And I try not to think about discussions we had in library grad school about technology changing and future generations (or even sooner) having to move collections of documents and data to whatever the latest viewing technology is available. That someday no one will be able to view CDs full of data unless they have an antique reading device. And that paper documents still available from centuries ago are still readable if they were preserved.

But that’s another blog.

This one is about the process of providing access to memories for everyone. The way to distribute family photos among surviving members electronically, quickly and efficiently. And that’s a misnomer in itself. Once a file is complete the transfer to other people will be quick. But putting that file together takes a long time.

I love the 'mid-century-ish" of this. And it was mid century too

I love the ‘mid-century-ness” of this. And it was mid-century too.

I cleaned out a closet this week and found a box filled with random photos, some of them very old, of family. They are so fun to look at, and bring back so many memories that I want to share them with my brothers and sister. So I’m scanning them into a file. And I’ve found that scanning a friend’s family photos is much faster than scanning my own.

Working through a pile of photos spanning my own history takes time. Time to peruse each image, each face, to take in the background and figure out which house, which city, which trip, which year. To sort out which baby image belongs to which child.

Time slips away as I am immersed. And then the dog barks, or the snow slides noisily off the roof, and I am jolted back to reality. Mom and Dad are gone. My brothers and sister live far away. I miss them all but am still very thankful that I have the memories captured in these random photos.

And so I scan the next picture and smile at the baby smiling back and remember summer days and adventures from long ago. Someday this project will be complete and I’ll be giving them their memories for review. I hope they enjoy them as much as I did putting it all together.

I can’t see how they won’t. Who can resist pictures of cute kids?

Lean on me…

February 16, 2016
by dawnkinster 28 Comments

The same but different

A lonely day at the lake.

Twenty-eight degrees F (-2.22 C) here, and a slight frozen mist hanging in the air; seems perfect to go for a nature walk around a lake. So I drove out to my favorite park again. You know, the one that was full of activity and bright sunshine the last time I was there.

Not so much sun or activity today. It felt melancholy, lonely, damp. Few people were out, though there were more than I expected at the back of the park on the far side of the lake.

Someone is watching me.

And there were birds. As I took my first step on the nature path I could already hear the chickadees calling, and soon they were circling my head. They expect a treat. I left them a few seeds on the railing of the first bridge and moved along. It was too cold to stand still, arm outstretched to feed them individually.

Incoming!

I was thinking about why I was lugging my camera. Before I left the house I debated not bringing it, considered the advantages of taking a walk in nature without it. But then I realized if I did that there would be something amazing and I’d regret not having it.

What you lookin at lady?

So early in the walk, with fingers already getting cold, I thought about all the pictures I already had, filed away in my archives. Pictures of this park, these birds, most under better light and conditions than I was facing today. So why was I still watching for something interesting?

Anything good up here?

People have asked me….”what do you do with all those photos?” I don’t necessarily do anything with them, except share a few of them here with you, or with family. If I’m at a family event I might turn the best of them into a book for my siblings to remember our time together. But only a few of them ever end up in anything I share.

Most of the time I just flip through them and remember.

Because, you see, I can remember what it felt like to stand where I stood when I took almost every one. The way the light was, the temperature of the air, unique smells and sounds, why I was out there, the shots I missed when I got the one I’m staring at now. The photos in my archives take me right back to the adventures I experienced when I took them.

OK, we can share.

I think it’s probably a lot like playing music. It’s more fun to be the player than the listener. Perhaps it’s more fun being the photographer than the one looking at the results. For me, it’s all about the hunt; sometimes for something specific that I have in mind, but more often the fun of finding an opportunity to catch something surprising or pretty, or arty or just cool.

Eastern bluebird scout

So on today’s cold walk along the mist shrouded lake I didn’t find lots of great photos, but I found enough to make me smile. And really that’s enough to make cold feet and tingly fingers worthwhile.

Peek-a-boo

Even if no one else ever sees the majority of them.

Serenity

February 6, 2016
by dawnkinster 22 Comments

I don’t understand advertisements

Spring fashion.

Superbowl Sunday is tomorrow. If you’re not in the US that probably doesn’t mean anything, but trust me, it’s a big deal. Even if you’re not into football it’s a big deal, the culmination of our football season supposedly between the two best teams of the season.

And then there are the advertisements.

Advertisers are paying $5 million for a 30 second ad to run during the game. Superbowl ads have gotten more and more creative over the years until now they are as much a draw to watch as the game itself. This year they’re already showing us bits and pieces of some of them, though many people want to wait until game day to see them for the first time. Sort of like the groom waiting until the wedding day to see the bride in her dress.

Brighten up any kitchen.

But even before the Superbowl I’ve begun to notice I don’t understand today’s television ads. For example, right now there’s some guy with a drum and cymbals strapped on his back, playing them with a line attached to his stomping foot while he’s also playing an accordion and singing (I guess it’s singing) something about how he loves to eat ‘pepperona.’ I had to see it several times to figure out he is advertising pepperoni that goes on pizza.

It’s obnoxious.

And there’s the two guys at the gym, each doing bicep curls, wearing tight shorts. As they banter the guy on the left gets more and more buff, curling more and more weight. I have no idea what they are selling.

It’s gross.

Equally annoying is an ad with a macho guy with some sort of wolf dog on the left v.s. a girly guy in golden light on the right. They are hawking cough drops.

I don’t know why.

Summer sport.

I hope with $5 million spent on each 30 second Superbowl advertisement that they make more sense, are less awkward, and certainly less obnoxious. And that it’s at least clear what they are selling.

I hope you all enjoy the game. Or whatever else you’re planning on doing with your Sunday.

(Photos on today’s blog are leftover mall ‘vibrant’ shots that didn’t make the cut. After all, everything there is meant to sell something too.)

Sweet.

January 15, 2016
by dawnkinster 22 Comments

I think I have letters to write

Years ago my Dad said he could tell where he was in the life cycle by the tone of the family Christmas letters we received. Back in the early days people were starting out and talked about new babies, new jobs. Then suddenly kids were graduating and getting married and starting jobs themselves. Grandchildren began arriving. Eventually his friends started retiring, traveling, dealing with health issues. News of death was beginning to appear in holiday letters the last years of his life.

I think about that a lot as I see it reflected in the Christmas cards I receive each year. People I went to school with are grandparents now. And more and more hints that life doesn’t last forever are popping up in those yearly letters.

But it’s more than the annual holiday letter that provide clues about mortality. Social media, Facebook, Twitter and all the rest keep us up to date with people we might never have stayed connected with prior to the internet. We hear about life events almost instantly. We offer congratulations and condolences and support from a keyboard. And while I appreciate the connections I feel an old fashioned responsibility to send something more, especially when condolences are required.

So I have letters to write.

Today is the funeral of a blogger friend’s dad. Early next week a friend from high school will be burying her own dad. The two men died on the same day; I learned of their deaths while on the internet. At Christmas I learned that a coworker died last year. I hadn’t known he was sick and I want to write his widow who I never met. And last week I read online that the father of kids I used to babysit has died. His widow still lives in the house down the street from my old home. Though the children are grown, probably with kids of their own, I feel a need to let them know I’m thinking of them.

Somehow it doesn’t seem enough to just say ‘sorry for your loss’ in a Facebook post. Yet I’ve done it that way too. A friend from the dog training community lost both her parents in September last year, and all my communication was in the form of emails and Facebook posts and private messaging. Is that enough? Does that provide a more immediate support? Has the world moved on from handwritten letters that arrive with a stamp?

Or do I have letters to write?

January 4, 2016
by dawnkinster 18 Comments

Like a shark

Up out of the warm darkness that is sleep you reluctantly emerge. One eye cracked open you see the triangle of an ear on the other side of a pile of pillows. It’s slowly moving toward you. The music of “Jaws” begins to waft through your sleep deprived brain.

The soft weight of the resident shark settles on your chest and then sneezes into your face.

Feed me.

Good morning Lydia.

December 6, 2015
by dawnkinster 18 Comments

Walking in a winter wonderland

Extraordinary morning.

You think it’s easy to go for a walk every day? Sure. What’s a little daily walk to a retired person? Well that’s what I said too, and why I agreed to join my fellow Michigan Connectors in a challenge to walk (or run, but really? RUN?) at least one mile every day between Thanksgiving and New Years Day.

I like to walk. I enjoy almost all of almost every walk I’ve ever been on. But it’s still hard. I wake up every day and think “Where am I going to walk today?” And I’ve figured out I need to get the walk done early in the day, before the rest of the world interferes and the day gets away from me.

A frosty walk.

My favorite walks are those when I have enough time to drive to one of our parks and walk through the woods. In fact I had a lovely almost two mile walk early in the morning just a few days ago. The images in this post are from that magical morning in a county park not far from where I live.

Blue skies above the marsh.

There’s lots to do at this park. A small playground complete with climbing wall for little kids. An eight mile bike path that winds through wetlands and deep woods. A water pad for summers. Even a chain link maze.

Holiday colors.

For the winter there’s a sledding hill and a toboggan run. And tucked way in the back is a nature area with a path through tall trees and marshland.

Hill waiting for snow.

I saw no cars anywhere in the park when I arrived – I had the whole place to myself. The sun was glinting off frost tinged grass, brush and leaves.

It was magical.

From days past.

Half way along the nature trail another trail branched off. It is called the ‘farm trail’ and at the base of it were a couple of antique farming implements. That morning the frost had touched the rusted metal and the result was beautiful. I spent a long time taking shots of bits and parts of frosty rust, totally ruining my split times.

As if time was important to a retired person.

Frosty.

A lesson to this retired person. No matter what the weather if you get outside and walk a mile you’re going to find something, maybe a lot of things, worth the walk. With or without the camera.

Puddle art.

I know I’m lucky to have the time to take these walks. And I’m lucky to belong to a group of women who hold health and fitness high on their lists of important things. They challenge me to stick with it, even when I don’t want to.

Which is why I’m having a blast walking in a winter wonderland.

On top of the world.

December 5, 2015
by dawnkinster 7 Comments

Why listen to the other side?

Trucks and guns. Both are supported by huge organizations with deep pockets, organizations that donate heavily to congressional campaigns. Organizations that expect their contributions to protect their interests.

I’ve been fighting the uphill battle of anti-truck safety issues for a very long time. And as I watch the unfolding events after this latest mass shooting I am reminded once again that those fighting for gun law reform are climbing a similar mountain. A friend re-posted an article about the progress gun law reformers have made joining forces and gaining support. It sounds familiar, though with the media coverage mass shootings get it looks like their cause is getting more celebrity support and funding than our mission has to date. Still, even with funding, fighting the NRA, just like fighting the ATA, will always be a David and Goliath battle.

I’ve been thinking about these battles, ours against big trucking pushing anti-safety agendas, theirs against fervent gun owners pushing gun rights at all costs. If I’ve learned anything in my fight it’s that there is not always clear and obvious right and wrong. Sometimes, but not always. And I’ve learned that time spent listening to the other side without letting trigger words wash over my mind and emotions is worth the effort.

But both sides need to listen without talking over the top of each other.

What I’m seeing on television, as usual, is that no one is listening to anyone else. Everyone is talking loudly about their point of view. Maybe that’s good television, but it’s not going to resolve anything. We have learned that on some issues we need to work with truck companies, and I think there are going to be issues in the gun control fight where both sides have to compromise for the good of everyone.

But no one will be able to figure out where compromise is possible as long as both sides are busy building walls and flinging grenades of accusations, some true, some not, over those walls. In order to make progress and make the world a little safer everyone needs to look for ways to work together. These are complicated issues, with heavily entrenched views.

Nothing is easy when big industries and lots of money is at stake. But there’s always more than one route to problem resolution. We need to work together to find those options. We can’t continue on the way we are, arguing loudly, resolving nothing, the chasm between sides growing wider and deeper. We need to listen to each other, recognize the kernels of compromise hidden in the rhetoric and begin the difficult work.

Change is hard.

November 29, 2015
by dawnkinster 5 Comments

Time marches into Christmas

I belong to a cyber group of running women; friendships formed years ago when we ran together and separately are maintained now mostly via email. Some of us still run. Some don’t anymore, but encourage the rest. We are all important to each other. This holiday season our Energizer Betty suggested a challenge – that we each commit to walking or running at least one mile every day, beginning on Thanksgiving and continuing until the New Year. It seemed sensible, so I’m in.

What’s one mile, right? For a person bent on getting her 10,000 steps in every day this should be a piece of cake. But here it is day four and it’s cold outside. I don’t want to go to the park for my walk, don’t want to even walk down the street here at home. So I head to my backup walking place – the mall. The stores there don’t open until 11 on Sundays so I arrived just before 9, hoping to get my three miles in and be long gone before holiday shoppers descended.

The parking lot didn’t look that different, perhaps a few more cars, and I headed inside confident I could get my walk done. I was surprised to hear Christmas music blaring from the overhead speakers and all the lights on. The stores were raising their gates as I moved along, and people were beginning to stream in through entrances I passed. Santa was already ho ho hoing on his big chair, the movie theaters were open and smelling of popcorn.

Obviously things were beginning to jump already.

I wove my way through the shoppers moving more quickly than normal as I found myself marching to the fast paced Christmas music. After only one loop, a measly one mile, I gathered my coat and ducked out to the car. I’m going to have to get going sooner in the morning if I plan on using the mall for my walks from now till Christmas.

On my drive home I turned up the radio and soon was listening to the Trans-siberian Orchestra‘s heavy pounding relentless Christmas music. I usually love their stuff, but this morning I felt it was pushing me on down the road, that I was too swiftly moving toward some unknown future. Time is moving so fast. Our community band’s holiday concert is this Tuesday! I’ve barely put the gardens to bed and here we are pushing up against Christmas.

She was having a good day.

I visited Aunt Vi this afternoon. She’s 100 years old now and spends most of her time sitting in her recliner listening to her bird chirp, watching traffic go by on the road. All those people coming and going, she says, where are they all going? I don’t know Aunt Vi, I don’t know. We’re all going somewhere in a hurry, trying to keep up, headed toward some unknown future, moving quickly to the beat of relentless holiday music.

We’re all in a hurry to get there. But I wonder where the ‘there’ is. Aunt Vi is 100 and she’s no longer running to keep up. I hope I can learn that lesson too. I hope I can slow down and enjoy each day. And I’m probably going to need to find a calmer place as a backup for my walks.

As we rush toward Christmas and the end of another year I hope we can each find moments of calm, peace, beauty and friendship. I’ll be looking for those things on my daily walks.

I hope you find them too.

Friends

November 26, 2015
by dawnkinster 7 Comments

Katie says she’s thankful

Listen up!

Katie here.

I know I usually steal mama’s blog when I have a complaint to voice. And don’t get me wrong, there are numerous things to complain about, mostly revolving around the limited access I have to treats. I’m working on that, but it’s slow going.

My mama told me today is Thanksgiving here in the United States. That’s a time when families and friends get together, eat a lot of food, and remind themselves how truly lucky they are. Well. If there’s a lot of food involved I’m in.

Oh.

Mama says it’s not about the food. She says that I have to tell you all what I’m thankful for. Well let me see…

First of all I’m thankful that I have my mama and my daddy to take care of me. I don’t admit it very often but they spoil me just a little bit. I have pillows all over the house just in case I want to take a nap. I need a pile of pillows, don’t you know, because I’m a princess. And a princess always needs to be comfortable. I also get to sleep on the bed, and if I choose the best spot they will usually move over for me. And they make sure I have lots of toys to play with, and they never (hardly ever) forget to feed me right on schedule; if they’re a little slow I remind them and they hop right on it. Yep, my mama and my daddy are the best things that ever happened to me. But don’t tell them, I don’t want them to get too big headed.

My aunt got me this frog when I was a baby!

I’m also thankful for all the adventures my mama takes me on. We get to go to my park pretty often, and my mama takes me to other bigger parks too. There’s always a lot to sniff and I love to go go GO! Sometimes, when it’s nice out, we even go to the park and stay there all night! Mama says that’s called camping and I just love it! I get to sleep outside (well, in a tent) and smell the lovely sniffings all day long! I love being outside so camping is just perfect for me! Mama says she likes to do that too so it all works out.

Camping is a blast!

And of course I’m thankful for all of you! I like hearing about all your adventures. It’s a small world and it’s good to know so many doggie families. I’m especially thankful to be Reilly the CowSpotdog’s girlfriend. I hope I get to actually meet him and his family soon — we’ve been long distance friends for a really long time. He lives in a pawsome place now and I can’t wait to visit!

My boyfriend Reilly.

On a sad note we had very bad news last night when we heard that our FB sheltie friend Agnes Ann was killed by a car. Mama couldn’t stop crying, though I tried to make her feel better. She and I went outside and looked at the big full moon and she hugged me really tight and I let her cause I knew that’s what she needed to do. She cried into my fur for a long time and I was just quiet, didn’t even ask to get down. After awhile she wiped her eyes and rubbed the sheltie fur off of her face and we came back inside. I’m thankful that I can give mama that comfort when she needs it. She says I should tell you all to hug your people today too.

This Thanksgiving will be quiet here and I’m happy to be spending it with my folks. I am thankful that they aren’t going south this year, they’re going to spend this holiday with me! I hope they share some of that food I’ve heard so much about, but I doubt it. Mama has this silly rule about people food. I don’t get any unless it happens to jump off the counter on it’s own accord. Which is why whenever mama is in the kitchen I’m in the kitchen. Shelties are smart you know.

Thankful that I’m beautiful.

I hope you all have a wonderful, calm, peaceful and happy Thanksgiving with your peoples. I’m thankful for each of you that reads my mama’s blog. It makes her feel good to know you’re all out there.

And if you think of it, send some healing thoughts to Agnes Ann’s mom Kathy.

I’m thankful for all of YOU!

Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Tag Archives: musings