[intended as] First post in over a month. Retirement, running, carving, canning, Facebook, and reparations, in no particular order. And the skink.

Many teachers retire with hundreds or even thousands of hours of unused sick pay. It’s not that we have not been sick, it’s that preparing our classroom for a substitute teacher and then tidying up the mess when we get back is an unbelievable amount of work. (Ask any teacher.) Sometimes it’s easier to crawl in to work while sick than try to set up something meaningful for when we’re gone.

[When I had my appendectomy, I needed a doctor’s note to stay home three days, even though I’d fallen ill while at school. And I had pneumonia and/or bronchitis six times in my last few years of teaching full time, never staying home long enough to get completely well. The main reason I retired was I was too tired to work the hours. I could no longer do the job I wanted to do for my students full time. I begged for part time, but only the privileged few were granted that. I tried teaching just the college classes and everyone assumed I would never retire. It had been my goal to work to age 72. That did not work out.

[Never mind. I was spared the pandemic so that’s something to be grateful for, I suppose.]

I wasn’t paid for my unused sick pay when I retired, but a co-worker spent the year before his retirement mostly working Monday through Thursday and calling in sick on Friday. He understood the concept of Quiet Quitting before it had a name.

In Japan, there’s a concept called shokunin, which refers to an artisan who is deeply dedicated to their craft, always striving for perfection in what they make. Quiet quitting is like the opposite of that. It’s about divorcing your ego from what you do for a living and not striving for perfection. Setting boundaries and simply completing the tasks you’re supposed to complete within the time that you’re paid to do them — with no extra frills. No more kowtowing to your boss or customers. No more working nights and weekends, incessantly checking your email.

—Greg Rosalsky and Alina Selyukh, “The economics behind ‘quiet quitting’ — and what we should call it instead”

My life is about shokunin.

Maybe some people do their happy dance when they retire because they’ve been putting in their hours, never taken extra work as an obligation, no extra training in order to better understand or perform their work, and when they retire it’s good riddance to labor. Work is only work. This is old news to many workers in a variety of professions. I knew a doctor who hated medicine and desperately wanted to sell real estate, carpenters who only wanted to surf, dancers who worked in bars. Some people do not care to know if they are the best they can be at their jobs.

I might envy that ability to not care so much in theory, but it’s not who I am. Gary assures me it’s not who either of us are.

We care. Both of us have enough disfunction in our families to appreciate doing a good job to the very best of our ability.

About the quitting.

Most people are still making money for Zukerberg, but I remind myself of this and his intentions whenever I am sad about missing photos or an event that close friends and family share on the site but do not think to forward to Gary and me. I recently spent two days making a gift for someone who has not thanked me. I should be used to this by now.

“My father’s family kept slaves—and he defended it. Acknowledging it matters,” writes Maud Newton in The Guardian. “Family histories like mine are at the foundation of the culture we live in, a reality we have to confront. And they are not limited to the south. Slavery permeated the Massachusetts Bay Colony; it was not banned in New York City until 1827. Unclenching around what my ancestors did has given me a sense of continuing interrelatedness with them that’s not tied to silence and unhealthy allegiance. It brought an awareness of how those ancestors survive in me, and a clarity about how I want to show up in the world. The acknowledgment connects with a legacy of my evangelical upbringing, the idea that ‘the truth will set you free.’ So it’s not about feeling guilty; it’s about honesty… A descendant of what he calls the largest slave-trading dynasty in US history, Tom DeWolf, the executive director of Coming to the Table, agreed that honesty is the only path—with a caveat. ‘The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.’ ” She also quotes Harold Fields, head of the Denver Black Reparations Council: ““We should be talking to hospice workers about how they help people make the transition from the life that they knew, “to a new one that they’re afraid of. When we think about values dying, that is hospice work.”

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I have been carving wood, the good soft wood called basswood. Three other women showed me what to do with such kindness and generosity while working with much harder wood themselves. I was glad to be making. [My father carved a little and taught me to sharpen my pen knife when I was maybe eight. He taught me to play chess too, and how to use a library, logic and evidence. He always meant to write a book, but he never did begin. His is the best example I know of the warning not to talk too much about what you intend to do. Do it.]

Someone asked me to read a draft of a memoir piece. It was fascinating and rich in potential and will be a gut punch when it’s complete. I have also been reading novels and this provided me with something to admire and something to put away. Naomi Novik’s Spinning Silver struck me as incredible for the story, the viewpoint, her understanding of cultures and worldviews. It is fantasy dealing with issues of class and the magic of ordinary words and numbers, the extraordinary power of “no” as an expression of personal autonomy.

And then, in a charity shop, I found a copy of Harper Lee’s novel published after she lost control (and likely against her wishes). Go Set a Watchman is a wretched book, a shame that casts back all the way to the easily ignored flaws in To Kill a Mockingbird. They are impossible to ignore in this second book. I wrote my review on Goodreads. I read others. Some reviewers claim to love it, some politely labeled it three stars. But no, I did not like it and allowed myself to stop reading. By that time I was full to brimming of my own opinions.

So I wrote the essay about memoir that had been circling around my brain for several months, revised, read it aloud, twice, revised again and again and then formatted and revised. Then I recklessly sent it off. I have not been submitting work. I had, in fact, vowed to stop submitting to publications. But as of today I have five submissions awaiting rejection—all sent this month. It is an accomplishment, and one I have carefully avoided acknowledging to myself until now. I might get scared and stop.

This summer I have canned one hundred half-pints of jam, marmalade, and chutney, using strawberries, raspberries, rosehips, blackberries, salal, black currants, lemon, orange, mango, ginger, chilies, and rhubarb. Some from our garden or wild, the organic citrus and exotics purchased. I do not even eat jam on toast, but I like especially the chutney on toasted cheese sandwiches. Guess what friends will receive for Christmas this year!

I should be reading, writing, weaving, sewing, carving, and sorting the hundred boxes from a disassembled closet. One thing at a time.

Have I covered everything I promised in this post? Enough for today.

Oh! The young skink in the atrium. She held very still while I photographed her so that I could not see her (but I did). Skinks eat bugs and Gary has put out a little dish of water for her (not sure she needed that), and we went into the house to give her space. We like skinks.