Iam semi-retired. My last day as a full-time beat reporter was uneventful, except for one incident that it seemed to me was noteworthy.
A ladder appeared outside the window next to my desk and before I knew what was happening, the vines that were growing up the outside wall and across my window started to disappear.
“What the heck?” I said before the realization dawned that someone was pulling them down.
I wanted to knock on the window and yell for the hidden person on the ladder to stop tearing away at the creeping green vines that served so many purposes for me, but he was gone before I could stop him, just as my career as a journalist seemed to be winding down faster than I could shout, “Slow down, I want to savor the vine-like mystery called life!”
This tiny bit of nature climbing outside the inner sanctum of my office space was useful. It obscured the view of the used car dealership’s parking lot next door to my office on Broadway in Long Branch.
The shoots hid the urban view in the summer, and in the winter the spindly vines created patterns for me to muse over when my imagination was trying to come up with a lead, or a way to paraphrase legalize or to crack open the jargon engineers use to explain traffic, noise, or environmental issues.
In addition, there were little birds hiding among the greenery and calling to each other in birdsong. My editor and I often commented on the birds, both feeling the sense of wonder that comes from being close to animals in their natural environment. How adaptable these birds are singing in the vines attached to a red brick building next to a driveway where huge paving trucks drive past them countless times a day.
And the vines, how tenacious.
They are hangers-on – once you cut them down, they grow back, more unwelcome than ever.
But, I don’t want to be that kind of clinger. I learned from my mother the satisfaction of letting go and moving on, even if it is painful.
After my initial sense of loss over the vines, I remembered that I wouldn’t be sitting here any longer. I had made the decision to retire months ago and when I told my managing editor that I had picked a date, it was one of those big gulp moments. There it was, I had said it, I’d meant it, and I was stuck with it a month later when she informed me that she had hired someone to replace me.
My replacement is very young and full of excitement. This is a new career for her and her eyes are open wide with curiosity and amazement while mine, no matter how hard I try to prevent it, are tired of the repetition of issues that never seem to get resolved.
The novice reporter joined me at a recent board meeting. While she laughed at the antics of the board and seemed so interested in the characters that came to the microphone to speak, I yawned, worried that too many questions would extend the length of the meeting.
Fortunately, for my replacement it is all new, but for me it is all too old. I am ready to retire. I’m just not ready to let go of the vines.
Retirement for me, as for many of the baby boom generation about to flood the Social Security system, means becoming other directed.
Although I want to continue to write arts features and this column that my editor generously encouraged me to write, journalism is not going to be my work focus. It is going to be a sideline. Instead of being a so-called Sunday painter, I will be a Sunday writer and a full-time artist.
It may be too soon to say that there is life after retirement, but I’m looking forward to reinventing myself again.
It feels like New Year’s Day to me. I have so many ideas and plans. But for now, I want to be alone someplace beautiful and peaceful, with my laptop, a camera and paints.
My son has a small ski house in upstate New York near Woodstock where one of my favorite artists, Milton Avery, is buried.
I’m going to visit his grave and like my friend Joe, the traveling southwest artist, walk into a coffee shop and try to connect with a group of artists. I don’t know if I will be successful at that because unlike Joe, I’m not as outgoing, but then again, I am reinventing myself.
The power of the Internet came to my aid again. I found a school in Woodstock that has a four-day workshop that interests me, figure painting and drawing. I’m signing up for that and, hopefully, will strengthen the strong visual skills that are one of the artist’s primary tools. I need to get into the vines and see them from the inside out, instead of through the buffer of glass.
On my last day as a full-time reporter, while I was removing the photos of my grandchildren and photos of the mixed media paintings that I have done over the past few years, I thought about the young woman who would be sitting at my desk. She will have to look at the gray, urban setting outside the window, at least until next spring.
On the other hand, there is more light without the vines obscuring the view. Clarity is good.
Linda DeNicola is a former staff writer for Greater Media Newspapers.