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SPRING
2000 George A. Crispin
Woodbury MMIt is 4:30 AM. Something in me stirs. It is cold, dark, quiet. Like countless other mornings, I drag myself from a warm bed, shuffle into the kitchen, throw on clothes hung there the night before to gather the dimishing warmth from the woodstove, and begin the day. After a splash of cold water from the sink, and finished wrappings against the outdoor cold, I step onto the front porch and head for the barn. The stars sparkle in the heavens, emblems of the night's splendor; the sun has not arisen above the horizon, though off in the east the forest black has softened to gray. As the first breaths of morning air fill my lungs, this invigorates me with an energy that lasts until noon. My day has begun.
But wait. Something is wrong. I do not have to do this. I retired in December. Regimentation, which was my constant companion, nudging me to keep appointments, perform tasks, and get things done, has also been retired. Time is now my friend. No longer are the 5:00 AM rounds a necessary routine. I can arise when I want. But habits are hard to break, especially when reinforced by the decades.
Long vacations I have known before. The tendency to stay up, reading or watching television, then sleeping late, arising slowly, meandering around in night clothes for hours, are all the telltale signs of a crumbling discipline. The will that insists upon daily exercises, the afternoon run, the evening swim, being careful about what one eats, reading instead of watching the tube, all fall prey to the new lifestyle of excessive leisure. Now my vacation could last for months, possibly years, even for the rest of my life.
Freedom, like most fortunes, contains both blessings and curses. I now have the freedom from routine to lull around, waste time, accomplish little, get fat and lazy, and witness the slow undoing of the building of years of discipline. But time has a moral dimension. We are blessed with life, made largely of time. How we use that time is a religious and moral matter.
The challenge for me in the months ahead is to find the discipline that was formerly born of necessity and give it a new birth born of will. In the time that I have now before me on this earth there is much to be done. It is not the doing that earns a paycheck, buys groceries, or pays the mortgage, but the doing that earns a life, a life of meaning. The appointments I keep, tasks I perform, and things I get done will no longer be those that arise from a career and paycheck. They will be the doing of those things, derived from a self-discipline, which I choose, out of love, commitment, and community in the search for meaning.
Tomorrow I shall arise at 4:30 AM, shuffle in the dark, buffet against the elements, splash cold water and breathe cold air, look up and see the last stars of the night, and all because this I choose. Thus, I will begin my new day, in retirement.
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Last modified:
Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:19 AM
