An Advent Time

 

As we ache for a much delayed spring, the dreary, cold, rainy, sometimes snowy weather challenges our patience. It not only postpones planting and dampens hope, but also mirrors our discontent.

For myself, there have been days when I’ve had to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. But overall I am in a period of quiet contentment and happy anticipation related to my upcoming retirement. During this time I feel much like I did when I was pregnant so many years ago, excited about what was to come and tranquil while waiting and preparing for her birth.

My contentment is due to my satisfaction with my judicial career and my sense that I’m leaving at the top of my game. My excitement is about the new development in my life, a third chapter opening with a primary thrust of writing. I’m eager to devote the best part of each day to this passion.

I have been thinking about a schedule: writing in the morning, reading in the afternoon, preparing dinner and exercising in the late afternoon and being with my family in the evening. I might not start this schedule until January, though, as I just read that new retirees often spend the first six months doing a whole lot of nothing!

I have been studying writing, first by devouring a variety of online sources about the business of writing and the revolution in publishing (e-books and other digital opportunities) and second by acquiring books in my primary genre – creative nonfiction (literary essays and true stories creatively told) – in order to learn from masterful writers. Sometimes the writing startles me with its beauty and I put the book down and close my eyes to fully absorb the phrasing. I contemplate and dream writing; at the same time I macro- and micro-edit my extant pieces.

And all the while the deep river of contentment runs.