SEASONED VOICES: A DAY IN THE LIFE ...
…of a blogger, a jubilada (retiree), a writer, an artist:
Earlier this year, I introduced a group of "Seasoned Voices" bloggers I belong to; we meet monthly to discuss how we're navigating through this stage of life, and quarterly post our individual take on a common topic. This spring, we're each writing about a day in our life.
6:00 – 8:00 am. I try to rise before the sun does, because I adore the time spent in my morning chair by the window, facing the sunrise, with coffee and my journal. With the weather now warmer, I take my coffee onto the balcony where my gardening efforts consist only of two pots of flowers. But what I lack in a stretch of garden beauty, I gain in the expanse of sky.
I favour these soft-touch pens that my daughter once gave me as a gift and now continues to give me when I (not so subtly) let her know my supply is running low. They are the lightest touch, good flow of ink, wonderful for arthritic hands. As for my journal – they are not always pretty. Sometimes I buy the cheap dollar-store ones, but the paper is always thin, and just as I do not like cheap, hard pens, I do not like cheap, thin-paper notebooks.
My daughter brought me back a lovely notebook from Japan.
But I have yet to use it, because I think: a beautiful notebook must be filled
with deep, beautiful thoughts. Not the rambling rubbish I write in my morning
pages. But– why am I saving these good things? Time is running out! I
long ago got rid of my useless china and crystal that mostly sat unused,
awaiting ‘special’ occasions (and hand-washing). But I realize I have not fully
abandoned that habit of saving ‘good’ things for that special moment when everything aligns (which is never). When will I
use that journal from Japan? Why not next week, next month? Why not today?
My routine after my coffee and journal and after my ‘morning
ablutions’ (a phrase my mother used; my dad favoured a more colourful one: Three S’s – sh*t, shave, shower) is fifteen to
twenty minutes of exercise, usually to some You-tube video with the sound off
and a podcast on (often about writing). These few minutes of exercise are not
intended to be cardio or strength-training or anything other than get my body
moving and ready for the day. Sometimes I’ll use some light weights (two or
five pounds), or a stretch band, other times just stretching and moving.
I then make my morning smoothie (kale, oat milk, peanut butter, protein powder, half a banana if I have one), followed by oats and Greek yogurt, frozen berries, nuts, while reminding myself to make the overnight oat version TONIGHT, but invariably I forget.
I check Instagram and
try not to linger on it for too long because you can absolutely get sucked in.
I look through some of my favourite people there to see what books they’re
talking about and whether I should add them to my ever-growing TBR list, which, although I have no hope of ever completing (see Time Running Out above), I enjoy adding to. It's like I'm stocking a pantry from which I can pick and choose, depending on what my future taste buds might crave.
9:00 to 11:am – this is my writing time, at my desk, albeit with a few distractions to read emails and blog posts and get myself more coffee and a snack. What I’m working on right now is editing two novels and also looking at resources for self-publishing which is a path I am considering because – well, as I said to someone recently, I am too old now for the long silences and/or rejections from the publishing industry. During the period at my desk,
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| Where the writing happens |
my watch frequently reminds me that it’s TIME TO STAND, and to which I quickly hit ‘Dismiss’. If only we could so easily dismiss other nuisances and annoyances from our lives.
11:30 ish – Twice a week, I head downstairs to the gym in my condo building. I pop in my earbuds, turn on an audio book or podcast and spend about half-hour on the machines and doing free-weights, all with the intention of maintaining and improving bone and muscle strength. Even with an audio book, I can endure no more than thirty minutes in the gym. Why must doing what is good for you be so tedious?
Once I’m back upstairs in my apartment, around noon-ish, I’m
generally famished and looking for lunch. I say ‘looking’ because I rarely have
meals planned in advance. I may boil a couple of eggs, toast a couple slices of
bread, or eat leftovers from the night before. If I’m planning on going for a
swim, I’ll delay eating until after that, but by then I am STARVING, because
swimming (also for only half hour or so) makes me inexplicably RAVENOUS. I will
shower in the pool showers (not everyone does this, and I am always super
grossed out when I see people enter the pool with obviously dry bodies. Why??).
After my laps, I will shower again and then lie down in the sauna for a few
minutes. Then it’s upstairs for lunch.
2:00 – 4:00 pm ish. This is my second favourite time of the
day (besides the early morning), because this is when I lie on the couch and
read, often falling asleep for a very satisfying nap. There is nothing like feeling
your eyelids droop as you read, confident that a deep, restful afternoon nap is
about to happen. Napping is highly underrated.
4:00 – 6:00 pm ish. After my nap, weather permitting, I will go for a walk, get my body moving again, then home to listen to CBC Power & Politics (I love David Cochrane and missed him during his recent absence from the show). And this is the time I’ll be thinking – what shall I have for dinner, because, of course, I’ve planned nothing. If I’ve eaten a big, late lunch and had an afternoon snack or two, I will often also snack for dinner (one of the advantages of living solo is not having to worry about putting a meal on the table at a certain time). My dinner snack might be: cheese, crackers, popcorn, hummus, nuts, often followed by some ice-cream or cake (if I can keep it in the house long enough). The joy of a slice of cake is also underrated.
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| Where the reading, napping, TV viewing happens |
Some afternoons, I will get out my watercolours and do some quick painting. If I’m painting with acrylics, it’s a longer process and takes place in my study, pulling out my rolling cart of supplies, setting everything up, turning on classical music.
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| The study - where the painting also happens |
Evenings vary, but many evenings will find me on my couch,
either reading or watching a series on Netflix. I prefer the ‘limited series’
where there is a definite ending and wrap-up to the story and not an ongoing
series where you’re left with a cliffhanger, awaiting the next season, and by
then you’ve forgotten pretty much everything about the story and impending
doom.
Somewhere between 9:30 pm and 10:00 pm: set the coffeemaker
for the next morning, bedtime routine, then in bed with a book.
Of course, this day can vary. There are days when I have
tennis or pickle-ball matches, meet up with friends or family, attend an
in-person writing group meeting, do groceries, clean the house (maybe), go to
events, have a book club meeting, or zoom online with writerly, like-minded
women. But this is a typical day when I have no plans, nothing on the
calendar, and am at home for the entire day. This may sound all very boring to
some people, but this is the kind of day I love (except for the gym part).
Annie Dillard’s famous quote: “How we spend our days
is, of course, how we spend our lives”. But how we spend our days shifts and changes
as we go through different phases of our lives. Now that I’m retired, my days
have a loose structure, with the flexibility to maneuver and change course. This
is one of the things I love most about retirement, this freedom to create
my day, not spend it based on someone else’s rules. I’d love to hear
how you create yours.
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You can head on over to read how other Seasoned Voices create and spend their days.
Helen from Ageless Possibilities
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