Today is my 3rd Anniversary of Retirement, I have celebrated with friends at River Drivers, at Mt. Chase Lodge and today I am just at home in Patten, Maine. I have a few photo's from this day over the past couple of years. I still have good feelings and very fond memories of my send off at the Minnesota Department of Human Services and then the "let's just have fun" send off in Como Park! A year later had a great dinner at River Driver's with the Fanjoy's and Debbie Gilmer, last year I was celebrated my recent move to my own house in the Katahdin Region and the airing of Maine Life featuring Mt. Chase Lodge. Today it is lots of things - the Super Bowl which I may watch snippets, but not really interested. Candlemas - (the purification of Mary) and the half-way between Solstice and Equinox....I have a candle lit in honor of the faster coming light! I could not have been able to imagine how my life would be today three years ago. I left a major urban area Minneapolis-St. Paul Minnesota, I ended my job and my career. I thought I would continue to do policy and planning consulting, but I didn't, I didn't want to - what a glorious surprise! I remember when one of my most beloved social work professors retired. She lived a block from me, and I was able to visit with her post retirement. She had just stepped aside, was doing life in totally different ways, not at all affiliated with her professional and academic life of the past - I was so bereft, I wanted her to be there somehow, someway....she told me that she had done her work, and was totally gratified and humbled. But she was done. I couldn't grasp it, but in the end, told her that once again I was the student and would have to learn from her lessons....little did I know.
I do many things these days, volunteer at the Millinocket Library, Co-Chair of the Steering Committee for the Katahdin Collaborative, some volunteering with our National Monument, and working with Bike Maine for their time in the Katahdin Region this fall. I have a church community, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Houlton, I have a lesbian/gay community with SAGE and Equality Maine, I am a book group, a knitting circle and I like to go to Shin Pond Pub. There is more but that is enough. Well I have to mention my new friends here, and my friends back at home and around the country that are so much a part of my life. What a gift, what a life.
Today is a Palindrome day 2/2/2020. It is groundhog day, he predicts a short winter. Candlemas the "purification of Mary", it is also the half-way between solstice and equinox, and in 1945 the first vinyl record was released.
Today is also the day that I went to services at the UU church in Houlton, and it was my first annual meeting - I am so grateful for this community that was established in 1835, it is one of the things I love about being here in New England there really is so much that is so very very old and still preserved today. I came home and enjoyed some Women's Basketball on television the USA Women's Team beat Louisville and the Minnesota Gophers beat Rutgers in double overtime.
A quiet anniversary but not unnoticed or acknowledged. It is a good day. A little soon, a little celebration, a little light. I wonder what I will have to say on my 4th Anniversary of retirement.
Today is a Palindrome day 2/2/2020. It is groundhog day, he predicts a short winter. Candlemas the "purification of Mary", it is also the half-way between solstice and equinox, and in 1945 the first vinyl record was released.
Today is also the day that I went to services at the UU church in Houlton, and it was my first annual meeting - I am so grateful for this community that was established in 1835, it is one of the things I love about being here in New England there really is so much that is so very very old and still preserved today. I came home and enjoyed some Women's Basketball on television the USA Women's Team beat Louisville and the Minnesota Gophers beat Rutgers in double overtime.
A quiet anniversary but not unnoticed or acknowledged. It is a good day. A little soon, a little celebration, a little light. I wonder what I will have to say on my 4th Anniversary of retirement.
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