Is There Life After Retirement?

I remember sitting my office at Silverado Resort, when my buddy Gary – referring to how I handled a recent situation – made the comment that I was the poster girl for the “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade” sound bite. He meant it as a compliment and I took it as such, referring back to it often.   I mean, that’s a good thing, right?   Make the best of any given situation, right?  So I liked being associated with it.

That is, I liked it until last week. While scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed … past the cats, past the political sound bites, past the Instagrams of what people had for dinner last night, I came upon this:

What???

I stopped and back-scrolled. “When life gives you lemons, throw it back and ask for chocolate?” Oh, yes. YES!   Hitting the SHARE button, I announced to the world that this is how I am now planning to live the last third of my life. Yes, I’m two-thirds of the way through. I’m not sure when that happened, but I digress…

So now I had a new motto, which I was very happy with.  Until last Wednesday.  It was during my 45 minute drive back from the main campus. Traffic was slow, radio reception was static-ky and my iPod was at home, so my thoughts wandered back to that sound bite. Give back the lemons and ask for chocolate. What a concept.

But what kind of chocolate would I want? Godiva? A chocolate truffle? Wait. What if I only get a Hershey’s bar, like at the checkout counter at Safeway? I mean, nothing against Hershey’s but that’s pretty … ordinary.  Shouldn’t I ask for something better?  I could at least score one of those Cadbury eggs that they only sell around Easter.

The more I thought, the more I realized that – as much as I love chocolate – I knew I could do better. Stuck in traffic, I tried to think of my most favorite taste sensation ever. What has made my taste buds sing beyond all else? As evidenced by my current plus size slacks, I dearly love food. So could I even think of a favorite? Is there an ultimate? Traffic finally began to move, so I put the thought aside.

But then somewhere around Maalaea it hit me: I knew the answer!

When I was about seven years old, my aunt Mary took me to an upscale Pittsburgh department store that had a candy counter brimming with hand made items. Looking into the case, I saw these perfectly shaped tiny little fruits that weren’t really fruit. OMG, they were beautiful!   Lost in these miniature wonders, I thought I heard the crisply uniformed candy clerk calling my name.

“Marti Anne.”

Jumping back in alarm I responded, “What? I’m sorry!”

“Sorry?  Dear, I was just telling you they are marzipan. Those little candies are called marzipan.”

Relieved that I wasn’t being scolded, I stole a side eye glance at my aunt.

“Would you like to try one, honey?” the candy clerk lady asked, while handing me a tiny little apple, formed and colored to perfection, shading and all.   Aunt Mary gave an affirmative nod.

“Yes, thank you,“ I said while reaching for the delicacy. Carefully, slowly, I took a bite. Now I may not be remembering this accurately but I swear – a choir came out of the sky and beautiful harps began to play. Angels floated by and lifted me up onto a cloud.  It was the most heavenly bite I’d ever tasted in my life. Who knew that if you took blanched almonds and smooshed them together with a lot of sugar, it could taste like that?  Oh … my … goodness.

Coming back to the present, I realized I was passing through Olowalu, and the radio reception would begin to improve. But that was fine because now I had a perfectly tweaked motto for this phase of my life:

If life gives you lemons, give ‘em back and ask for marzipan. And could you dip in it chocolate, please?

MW

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The rest of the story…

This whole blog made me crave marzipan something fierce.  Where, on a little island in the middle of the Pacific could I get some?  I decided to check the R Fields counter of Lahaina’s Foodland Farms, as they’re the closest thing we have to an upscale grocery store.  Yes, I know it’s not really upscale, but still. Anyway, I asked the lady at the counter if she happened to have any marzipan and she nearly demanded, “why are you asking me that??!!”  I tried to explain (thinking I was in trouble yet AGAIN because of this stuff) when she interrupted me to joyfully explain she is from the European town that is known for their superior marzipan and was so happy to be asked that.   European Candy Lady didn’t have any in stock, but within five minutes she had me hooked up with the R Fields counter in the brand new Foodland Farms, which she says “gets all the good stuff now.”  So here’s a picture of me from this past Friday, enjoying imported chocolate covered marzipan.  See?  I told you about this phase…

Marti Anne and Marzipan

My opinions tend to be on the liberal side, particularly regarding social equality.  I think the fuss we kick up regarding race, religion, sexual orientation are just ridiculous.  Good grief, I can’t believe we are still defending barriers that exist only because we created them.  But THAT’S JUST ME.

Nevertheless, I know there are people that I like – and even love – who don’t necessarily share my perspective on these issues.  Now if I am in a ‘real life, in person’ situation where something is said or done that is grossly counter to those beliefs, I will speak up.  Calmly and (hopefully) with respect, and I have no qualms about doing so.

But I don’t look for those moments.  If I encounter someone who I know has very different beliefs in certain areas, here’s what I know:  A) We both know we each think the other is nuts, and B) we both know we will not change the other’s mind.  So we establish a bit of a social comfort zone.  I don’t think it’s phony or cowardly; it is simply a mutual willingness to tread carefully on areas of disagreement so we may focus on the things we have in common.  It’s a way to create a little moment of positive connection in this crazy world. No, I don’t want to know how you think my president is the worst thing that’s happened to us and no, you don’t want to know that I’d – as an ordained member of Christ Consciousness – would love to perform the marriage ceremony for my friend to his future husband.  We usually avoid those areas.  What would stepping into it accomplish?

However, I’ll be honest  – I would not speak as candidly to that person as I would to a friend who I know shares my beliefs.  And again, I’m hoping it’s not an indication of being a coward.  I honestly don’t think so.  I interact with many people in different environments in my life and I tend to lead with whatever the person(s) and I have in common.  So – for better or for worse – I’m slightly different in the various aspects of my life.  I’m not afraid of being disliked, so I’d like to think the root is more along the lines of courtesy and consideration.

But social media has changed all that.  I’m thinking of a recent Facebook melee, but that’s only one instance of a larger development.  Suddenly, my and everyone else’s comments are made in a room full of everyone we’ve ever known in our lives.   On one hand, it’s interesting because we’re learning things about each other that we might not have otherwise known.  But on the other hand, in many cases we were probably happier NOT knowing!

Add this to the fact that we are already incredibly polarized, that we seem to be divided into THIS camp or THAT camp with nowhere in between to be, and, well….

It’s mind boggling.  Everyone is so angry.  I tell ya … if my spiritual beliefs were different (I believe this life is only an illusion anyway 😉 ), I’d be pretty freaked out about it all.  As it is, I am still usually able to keep a sense of humor and an element of detachment. Like now, in fact.

So where do we go now?  What’s next?

This post is simply from my perspective.  Now I want to hear about yours.

I was twenty-two and absolutely crazy about him and those big puppy dog brown eyes.  We made it through a few crazily romantic months … At work I wrote him notes about “winter, spring, summer or fall” and he wrote me love letters on musical staff paper in his barely legible musician’s scrawl.  Every night, after each set, we would just gaze into each other’s eyes or I would listen to his dreams and plans,  in an attempt at being the salve he continually craved.  He didn’t care for “unpleasantness” so we never discussed problems or things that weren’t working for me.  It began to feel a little stale but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why.

One evening he brought a woman to our table to introduce me to her.  He referred to her as his new friend.

I smiled, acted happy to meet her and like nothing in the world was wrong.  Inside I was confused, broken-hearted, but tried to keep the feeling of betrayal at bay.

One sleepless nights a few days later, this song came on the radio around 2AM.  Somehow it eased its way into my conscious mind and I got it.  I was done.

Yesterday, thirty-seven years and a bajillion lifetimes and people later, I was getting my back iced at my physical therapist’s office and the song flashed into my mind, the chorus playing in a continual loop.

The eyes are now blue but once again, I got it.

And, reluctantly, I am done.

Link:

Ain’t No Way to Treat a Lady

It’s been over fifty years, but I’ll never forget the trepidation I felt the first time I saw him.  The one lesson that had been drilled into my brain was to never talk to strangers or to ever accept gifts from them.  I had spent my entire four years of life with only members of my rather large extended family and this guy was most DEFINITELY a stranger.  Not only that, but he was also in disguise.  The beard was shiny white – like my dolls’ hair, NOT like any real beard I’d ever seen.  I remember his eyes – peering at me over glasses that were more like little windows than the kind in my grandmother’s eyeglasses, which made everything look bigger.  No, this man was obviously pretending to be somebody he wasn’t.

The worst part was – my own father wanted me to sit on this dude’s lap!  Dad said that if I sat on his lap like the other kids were doing, this man would give me a toy.  “Daddy, how could you?” I thought, and began to cry.  Right there in the middle of The Hub, Steubenville, Ohio’s flagship department store.  What sick grown up game was this?

Luckily, my mom intervened.  “Stop it!  She doesn’t have to go and I’m glad she doesn’t want to.”  I was folded into the layers of my mom’s winter coat and held, while my dad was dispatched to “get the damn toy.”  He got it, I took it, left with my parents and was happy to get away from the guy in the weird red suit who was obviously pretending to be someone that – I knew at age four –  didn’t really exist.

Fast forward a few years to sitting around my parents’ kitchen table with a variety of aunts and uncles telling tales, when I learn about my mom’s first encounter with the idea of Santa Clause:

My grandparents, who immigrated from Serbia (Yugoslavia), were Eastern Orthodox.  This religion, similar to Byzantine Catholic, followed the Gregorian, rather than the modern Julian calendar and celebrated their holidays on a different time scale.  So Christmas was celebrated on January 7^th, rather than December 25.  America was very different from where they came from, so catching up with the culture was always kind of hit or miss.

When my mom was in first grade, she returned to school after the Christmas break, only to be regaled with stories of all the cool presents Santa brought to her classmates.  “What did Santa bring you, Annie,” she was asked.

“Santa?  I don’t know who that is.”

“You mean Santa didn’t bring you anything?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Oh, then that means you must be bad!  Santa brings presents to good boys and girls but not to bad ones!”

Mom remembers going home in tears about this, until her older brother and sister helped her sort out the whole Santa thing.

Mom also said that although she remained neutral on the topic,  my dad, aunts and uncles tried to convince me of his existence. But she said I never bought it.  This is not to say I didn’t have an active imagination; I most certainly did.  I had imaginary friends, created extravaganzas, and even put on Alakazam magic shows for younger cousins.  Just could never wrap around the Santa concept.  I loved the TV specials, sang Up on the Housetop with out of tune gusto, loved Christmas otherwise.  But as far as Santa being a real person,  Mom said as early as age three, my reaction to Santa stories was, “Oh, that’s just dumb!”

I knew that as a mom, it would be asked of me someday, and dreaded the moment more than “Where do babies come from?”  For years I thought about how I’d handle it.

Then when he was about six, my son asked:

”Mom, is there really a Santa Clause?”

So I began:

”Well, I can’t really say for sure.  Everyone has to figure that out for themselves, and –“

There was way more of my often rehearsed speech to say, like talking about the spirit of Santa, the meaning of giving, etc. but he had cut me off midway through my second sentence.

“Okay, then I think I’ll believe in it for another year and then see where it goes from there.  Does that sound okay?”

“Sounds just right.”

“Cool.”  And he was off to play with his friends, the last word ever about the jolly man in the red suit.

We did the Christmas thing every year – trees, music, presents, lights, the whole thing and it was fun.  When he’d read the “from Santa” gift tag – even at a young age – he’d just look at me with that “yeah, right” expression.  I’d just smile and he’d roll his eyes.

This whole tangent was triggered by a short conversation I had with him, now twenty and on his own, the other day:

“How as your Thanksgiving?”

“Good.  And yours?”

“Really nice.”

“Good.  (pause)  Mom, about Christmas coming up … you know I don’t really care about the holiday thing that much, right?

”Oh, I’m so sorry, Son.  I think that’s my fault, cause I’m kinda ambivalent about it myself.”

“No, you don’t get what I mean.  I mean, thank you for not pushing it on me, especially now.  I really appreciate that.”

“Oh.  Okay.  You’re welcome? I guess?”

He laughed, patted me on the back and went back to his house.

So there you have it.  Three generations of “American Christmas” skeptics.  Nature? Or Nurture?  Hard to say…

Natalie Wood – Miracle on 42nd Street