Skip to main content

Retirement!

 


Photo credit: Amherst College Library

I am retired as of June 1. I had wondered what emblazoned T-shirt I would wear the first day. From a subconscious choice, I picked one I bought in 2013 at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, MA. I have not worn it much, wanting to save it, for some reason. But such conservatism seems silly now.

It contains the first three lines of this poem:

I’m Nobody! Who are you?

Are you – Nobody – too?

Then there’s a pair of us!

Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!

How public – like a Frog –

To tell one’s name – the livelong June

–To an admiring Bog!

I don't consider this one of her best poems--not sure what I would pick on that account, since there are so many, but it is fun and it fits now that I am retired. At least as far as my former employer goes.

I'm (sort of) a retired Nobody, as far as that organization goes.

Nobody there is going to come to me for help, advice, wisdom. Well, they might, but I have no authority. I can't help them much. Sure, I will still have relationships with people and the institution, but I'm not important. I can't say, "I'm a professor at..." any longer. I have lost clout.

And that's fine. I have a reputation beyond that, anyway. And it is dreary to be Somebody. I don't think she is saying frogs are public, but that they croak all day, and a nonfamous person need not do that to keep up their fame. "To an admiring Bog!" fits the atmosphere of a frog and puts the public on a low footing; we would think swamp or wetland in my part of the country. A bog is not too intelligent.

And it is June! After all the rain we have had, June is busting out all over.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

January 26, 2025: Joseph Campbell's view of things

  A colleague sent me this quote the other day. He said that it had really helped him through life and as he faced changes and retirement, and it also helped him follow his bliss and find what he really wanted to do.  “The problem in middle life, when the body has reached its climax of power and begins to decline, is to identify yourself, not with the body, which is falling away, but with the consciousness of which it is a vehicle. This is something I learned from myths. What am I? Am I the bulb that carries the light? Or am I the light of which the bulb is a vehicle? One of the psychological problems in growing old is the fear of death. People resist the door of death. But this body is a vehicle of consciousness, and if you can identify with the consciousness, you can watch this body go like an old car. There goes the fender, there goes the tire, one thing after another— but it’s predictable. And then, gradually, the whole thing drops off, and consciousness rejoins consciousn...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why to Read Fiction, Idea #27: Empathy, anyone?

The Idea #27 is tongue in cheek.  But these are some ideas about writing fiction, which I have done in ten novels (and counting), a dozen short stories, and two produced plays (I know, not exactly the same).  Background: In 2015 a colleague and I wrote an open educational resource public speaking textbook for a grant provided by our University System. We didn't realize at the time that it would go viral and be used all over the world within a few years. There are two reasons for that: it is good (as good as anything on the market) and it is free, although only in digital form. Check out www.exploringpublicspeaking.com for it. We also didn't know at the time that my co-author would die at 39 in 2016. I still miss him. Back to the point, I receive requests for the test banks every other day, and this morning I received one from Pennsylvania. The writer had a signature line: "Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Starting Over

We are ridiculously dependent on information technology.  I found that out two weeks ago when my MAC of ten years went inoperative. "Crashed." "Died."  Fortunately, some smart technicians were able to salvage my files; I should call them my life, my work, my creativity.  But I did lose my passwords. Specifically, I lost the password to my two blogs, which I have not posted to since the crash.   My first blog, partsofspeaking.blogspot.com had been in operation since 2006. It had almost 3000 posts on it.  Fortunately, I can still get to them. The whole world can. The fact that I can't get into edit or post it any longer means I also can't take it down. It is going to be there as long as Google Blogger will be. If anything there would get me in trouble, well, I'll have to live with that.  The second one, highereducationobserver.blogspot.com, is where I wrote about my professional expertise as a department chair. It reflected more research. In both blogs, ...
Post a Comment
Read more