I just returned home from signing the final papers related to my retirement from a 43 year legal career. The event itself was nothing to speak of – just me, my assistant, and an office manager sitting around a desk that had been mine in an office emptied of meaning and memories. The very sparseness of this scene was somehow appropriate, for I am well content with the service I gave to others and have a strong sense of closure.
As I returned along the highway leading to home, I noticed that the taller trees near my turnoff had roped and drawn low-hanging clouds into an embrace. Some treetops were lost to mist; others stood clear in the wintry light. This is a common winter’s sight in Humptulips County, one whose very ordinariness is belied by that certain, sweet variety of melancholy which declares: “You have come home.”
And so home I came: home to a country where the trees seek the company of the clouds on mid-winter days; home to a world where nature weaves its magic no matter the petty state of a man’s concerns; home to a life in which I no longer need to focus upon the concerns of others and have ample time for contemplation of nature’s concerns and of the basic rhythms of life.
Ah yes – a well earned sigh of contentment can be heard, clear up in Sky Mesa (Anacortes) present abode of this former racquet ball adversary and soon to also be a shiftless type seeking adventure.
It is not fun to wake up @ 4:30am three days a week, and not travel to the friendly 6th floor, to be assailed by insults and flying blue balls traveling for tender parts at the speed of sound. Although commuting to and from Anacortes 1.5 hours each way in the dark does begin to wear.
We who no longer tread the hardwoods of the WAC, need to determine some other method of torture. Any ideas? I’m relying on the quick wit of Gavin Stevens to invent a new a different method of sport!
Happy New Year, Dick
I need to find other exercise. Helen and I are going to start walking, but the weather has been so lousy it has goven us a good excuse to put it off. When are we going to have lunch and where?