The Making of a Recluse

Uh, oh. It’s happened. I’m a recluse. A hermit. I’m no good around people.

It’s always been brewing. You can’t be a writer and a distance runner and not be comfortable with solitude. And if your other pursuits are reading and art and lap swimming, you’re not quite a party animal.

So when Covid-19 and self-isolation first hit, it was almost business as usual. I remained absorbed in my projects, my reading, my quiet contemplation. My well-developed art of doing nothing. My mother used to say I needed five hours of alone time a day in order to be good around people. Even though Covid-19 gave me lots of Tim Time, we’ve learned to be alone in our house: I go downstairs; he stays upstairs. And Tim’s not a chatty guy.

Withdrawal crept up on me gradually. Most of my human interactions involved doing things with other people. I’m good at finding things to do, and other people make it more enjoyable. Want to see the quilt show with me? Want to go to the movies? Want to come over for dinner?

When things-to-do shut down, things quieted. Then there was Zoom.

Lovely Thursday and Friday morning gatherings became Zoom gatherings, as did book club. For a while, that was a New Thing and it worked. We could stay in touch. But after a while, the faces in the gallery became facsimiles of people, mug shots. Staring at mine was disconcerting at best, excruciating at worst. I took to turning off video. That helped, but it’s still video conferencing – for meetings! – not relaxed human conversation and play. (Except my weekly sibling Zoom call: siblings can still tease, play, and goof on Zoom. It’s innate.)

Staring at a screen is now torture. I’ve gone way past Zoom fatigue; I’m in Zoom abhorrence.

Fortunately, there are now social distancing meetups. My art group was my first, and it was glorious. We sat in a very wide circle on the unoccupied university lawn and heard real human voices with real human bodies. Then my book club did it, too. Hooray!

We have visited with friends sitting six feet apart outside. I have walked and biked with friends six feet apart. So why am I now a recluse? Why now do I feel socially awkward, like a misfit who would do socially inappropriate things in public?

I often do socially inappropriate things in public. (Ask my daughter.) It’s a battle I’m constantly fighting because there have always been rules my mouth and I just don’t get. Until I get home and review all the mistakes I’m sure I’ve made.

Now, some people might say, “Oh, Barbara, recluse isn’t you! You’re such an extrovert.” Actually, introverts are mistaken for extroverts because we overcompensate when in public – we can be ebullient in public! – even socially inappropriate – but then we have to recover in private.

The thing is, if we don’t have a “public” for months on end, we forget whatever social skills we might have had. Or we become convinced we’ve forgotten. It’s not exactly fear, more like reluctance or resistance. Or fear. It’s not the fear of catching the virus; I protect myself enough for that.

It’s simply the fact that I’m out of practice with being around people. For communicating. It even makes writing difficult – even this blog – because I’ve become so well-separated from communication. And it actually started with texting-instead-of-phoning; we’ve all been on elaborate back-and-forth texts that could have been resolved with one phone call … but the phone call doesn’t happen. Now Covid-19 has introduced even newer walls in our lives, but they don’t get dispelled with conversations, time together, empathic listening. Like I’m a bumper car banging around – bumping, not touching.

Lately, I’ve seen articles on “How to be Alone,” advising people how to use Covid-19 time as an “opportunity not to escape solitude but to lean into it.” But nothing about the people who’ve leaned in so far they’ve tipped over.

I think I’ve tipped over. Sometimes I actually hide. Tell me, am I the only one this is happening to? Hello? Helllllooooo???

Welcome to Toronto!

I’m pretty sure it’s something in the water. Something that seeps into the bodies of people in Toronto and … activates them.

I’m doing my annual “urban infusion” month in Toronto. Before this month, all I knew about Toronto was that it was in Canada and wasn’t Montreal, but I’m not even sure what “not-Montreal” meant.

So I did my research and discovered that Toronto was loaded with theater, with art, with neighborhoods, with public transit – all my prerequisites. I bought tickets, signed up for email newsletters, squelched several pre-trip anxieties. But the British-thing still haunted me, the part where people don’t talk to strangers in public. I can still flinch over the trauma of my first week in London, my week of zero human interaction. Weren’t Torontonians kind of British?

There I was in Union Station, facing a steep staircase with Robin’s massive suitcase and the need to find a Shoppers Mart to buy a transit pass. What’s a Shoppers Mart? Or rather, What’s a Shoppers Mart?!? how am I going to find one? how will I get downstairs? and WHY can’t Lyft find me where I am because three drivers have abandoned me after supposedly reaching me where I’m NOT?!?

Then one very nice man carried my suitcase down, another walked me to the front of a hotel so Lyft would have a destination, and another gave me a specific address to tell Lyft. I am beyond grateful.

Two hours later, Presto transit pass and library card in hand, I was an hour early for a library program. Everyone else was there with a friend or knew the staff or was a “regular.” I could always read a book, but David, the man next to me, engaged me in conversation and, before I knew it, we had exchanged contact information so David could send me some additional information. We’re now Linked In.

Two nights later, I happened to sit next to the theater reviewer at a performance. She knew all the local companies, the casts, the playwrights, the artistic directors; she was in her element. She and I discussed theater, watched Iphigenia get sacrificed, and afterwards, Lynn offered me a ride home.

Yesterday, I stopped in at a Japanese restaurant to ask about their miso soup. I left, but several minutes later, the owner found me at my bus stop to tell me something else about miso soup. He offered to give me the paste so I could make some by myself at home.

Do you see it? This spirit of welcome, of assistance, of openness, of friendliness?

[Alert! You cannot read these next few paragraphs without noting my delirium of excitement about the miracles of right-time right-place. I can’t put exclamation points after every sentence.]

In the library calendar, I discovered that the Toronto Public Library has a special Arthur Conan Doyle Collection – Sherlock Holmes and fairies and séances and spiritualism – and that the annual lecture with the Friends was to be held Friday!

So, again, I walked into a room where I knew no one, but this organization has been together for 18 years and they all knew each other very, very well. A man and woman approached me, introduced themselves, asked what brought me here. Turns out Barbara has written a play about Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allan Poe, and Harry Houdini meeting in the afterlife with unresolved issues about Arthur Conan Doyle; and she introduced me to Mike, the man next to me, who is head of the Bootmakers of Toronto. I am just in time for their bi-monthly meeting about Mycroft Holmes and more and more Sherlock! (Now I must use exclamation points!)

It’s not just that one Sherlock Holmes fan by luck found herself in the midst of many, many Sherlock Holmes fans. It’s that they welcomed me, they invited me in. How many times have I been at a meeting or gathering back home where lots of people called hellos out to others and moved seats to sit next to friends and there were some New People or Strangers who were on the periphery? How we might say hello … but then get right back to our conversations? Did I ever offer a Stranger a ride home? Did I embrace the Stranger?

I’ve been in Toronto only five days, and yet I’m flush with the warmth and friendliness shown me. Maybe it is in their water – it seems pretty widespread and contagious – but I’m not going to forget how welcomed I feel. I’ll bring that back home with me.

Book Club vs a Bad Book

My book club is happy for a lot of reasons, but what distinguishes us is we talk about the books. Yes, we learn what’s going on with our lives. Yes, we do things together. Yes, we eat food, drink wine, and share recipes. BUT we talk about the books, and we’ve been doing that for more than 20 years.

As soon as the book for the following month is decided upon, we used to race each other to reserve the book at the library. Over the years, that’s proven a problem: if we read the book too far in advance, we forget a lot of it by the time book club meets. (We’ve spent many book club evenings talking about “what’s-her-name” or “was-that-before-that-happened-or-after.”) Billy Collins, in his poem “Forgetfulness,” writes:

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of

So we have to time finishing the book so we’re still fresh with it when we meet. But that has its own problems: what if the book is long or tedious and we run out of time? What if everyone else has the library book and it’s not available? So we play this little dance of balancing memory against opportunity. The dance just gets trickier with time.

Over the years, there have been many books we’ve all loved: Bel Canto, Seabiscuit, A Gentleman in Moscow. There are books someone didn’t like while someone else loved it. Book club is the perfect place where discussion actually changes our opinions. There are books no one liked, but there were no books everyone hated.

Until The Echo Maker.

The Echo Maker was unanimously and universally hated. It was long, repetitive, and tedious. The characters were unreal, unsympathetic, and boring. Characters repeated themselves endlessly, so that finishing the book was torture. What may have been an interesting exploration of self and the perception of self was positively excruciating. Only the sand hill cranes came off well.

Am I not being clear enough about this?

Astonishingly, the discussion was terrific. It’s amazing how hating something really enhances the memory! We remembered every hated detail. We knew names, we knew characters, we knew every ludicrous, plodding plot iteration.

One of our more recent experiments was to come to book club with a sentence from the book that impressed us. Mary offered her sentence: Karin, the sister in the book, is thinking back to a time with a former lover:

“Two years ago that month, she’d lain with this man in the pouring rain, naked in the sloppy riverbanks, licking his armpits like a kitten.” (page 329)

Do you see what I mean? Who, who, who would ever find that plausible? What kind of woman licks muddy armpits during sex in the rain? Could you finish an entire book like this?

During the course of our energetic discussion lampooning of the book, I related another hairy armpit story. A friend of mine had worked summers at A&W Root Beer. There were big vats of root beer with some sort of stirring contraption at the bottom. When it became jammed, they had to use a special tool to realign it. The manager got fed up with jimmying it, rolled up his sleeve, and stuck his arm to the bottom of the vat. It was a hot summer day, and his armpits were sweaty. When he pulled his arm out, root beer dripped from his armpit hairs.

I told you, we talk about the book.

Someone Else's Adventure

In your Third Third, the idea of relocation gets bandied about. Maybe you want to be nearer family, maybe nearer health care facilities, maybe you just want an exciting change. You look for good spots, but maybe you decide you really like the spot you’re in after all.

The danger of all this relocation talk is that someone else may take you up on it. Someone else may decide to relocate. And if that someone else is a good friend, suddenly your good spot at home is changed. It’s missing that good friend.

Jinnie moved to Idaho.

Jinnie and I go back to my Second Third, but that was sort of peripheral. We just cruised by each other’s lives. It wasn’t till my first venture into Third Thirdism (?) – taking a fiber arts class together – that we moved into each other’s lives. The class led to playing art in each other’s houses which led to my introduction to all sorts of new materials and ideas which led to monthly art group meetings which led to movies and double dates and playing games. She introduced me to unbelievable hot chocolate and glow-in-the-dark 3-D miniature golf.

And now she went and moved to Idaho.

Compared to Jinnie, my art is cautious. I think and think about it, grapple with how to get my ideas to take shape. While I may have interesting ideas, without experience I’m weak on execution. Jinnie throws everything she has at the paper. She has jars and bottles and tubes of things that she experiments with, tries, plays with. While she’s on layer #6, I’m still planning my first brush-to-paper. So, of course, she ends up with art while I end up with … plans.

When I learned the word bricolage in New York – “something created from a variety of available things” – we adopted it for the monthly meetings Jinnie organized. We put ideas into a jar, and we draw one out monthly. One month: things made from corks. Another month: things beginning with a poem or quote. This month: paper dolls.

And now she went and moved to Idaho.

Jinnie lived near enough I could bicycle to her house. We’re from different decades, religions, health concerns, and political awareness; but all those things were topics for discussion, not topics for dissension.

When I went to London, Jinnie thought I was brave, but I was just doing my usual quest for new-ness. She’s leaving family, home, friends for the challenge of new opportunities. She is doing a big, brave, leap into New-ness. I returned to discover her house was sold, the date set, and the airplane ticket purchased. Once the packing had overtaken her house, she was “Done!” And yes, I’m jealous of her big, bold, adventure.

The bricolage group is continuing, and Jinnie and I are starting some sort of long-distance simplicity challenge she came up with, so I know she’s not “lost.”

Alaska is a place where people move in and out, but if you’ve lived here a long time, your friends have, too. Our kids grew up here. We talk about the difficulty in relocating, in leaving lifelong friends behind. But Jinnie taught me that you can make a friend three years ago and they could become Good Friends. That the friends of our Third Thirds are special because they are the friends of our new creativity, our new interests.

I wish her only to grow where she’s now planted … but I still wish that didn’t leave a hole in my garden.

Reflections on Return #1

I’m back – semi-recovered from 10 hours of time zone change and 14 hours of flights – and I’m reflecting. What did this month in London do for me in my Third Third?

First off, it was harder than I’d expected. One friend says, “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone,” and I hovered at my edge for quite a while. Life may begin at the end, but self-awareness comes from the edge.

I learned I’m not a hermit.
Mostly, when you’re a writer or artist, you spend time alone. After a while, you can think you’re not very social, you’re pretty autonomous, you’re a loner. So you think you can spend time in a new city all by yourself and still thrive.

Ha!

My loner life at home includes a husband who comes home every day, friends in the same time zone and on the same phone system I can call whenever. I may work quietly by myself, but it isn’t endless quiet. During my month in Manhattan, I had a mother every weekend, a daughter and sister visiting, cousins and friends sprinkled all over. I may have traveled solo, but I wasn’t living solo.

London was solo. Tim was unreachable on the Grand Canyon, and my only phone was British. The people sitting next to me in theaters and at lectures were British.

I re-learned I’m an Alaskan American with ethnic roots. Very not-British.
Yes, I cringed at the American who kept whining during a lecture, “I can’t understand what he’s saying.” I didn’t learn that I was a rude American or an insensitive one. I’m just an American who talks to strangers …

… and that is not done. This is an ad to sell newspapers:

The connections I made with strangers – the ones that were warm, engaging, sharing, and acknowledging – were made with Indians, Middle Easterners, other Jews, and a guy married to an American. So mostly, I was rebuffed until I learned to just sit there by myself.

I learned self-confidence is not a permanent human characteristic.
Given social isolation, unfamiliar geographic features, a different currency, and inexplicable cultural habits; and the formerly self-confident become scared little rabbits.

I became a scared little rabbit. Worries swam relentlessly in my head, unrelieved by human interaction. Worries compounded till they were just free-floating anxiety. Free-floating anxiety only stopped when it turned into outright panic. I diagnosed myself as a basket case. I worried for my mental health.

I re-learned that I get up.
Little by little, things improved. I learned my way around, connected with my three friends in London, was welcomed at a Passover seder. Tim became Skype-accessible; my sister visited. Going to a play with her meant I had someone to laugh with.

Every time I walked outside, I’d feel the flush of wellbeing as London’s spring drove out my Alaskan winter seasonal affective disorder. My runs got longer. The flowers got more colorful.

I went back to talking to strangers, but I picked them better. Besides, I had friends to spend time with now, to have real conversations with.

When I got hopelessly lost getting both in and out of the Barbican Centre, I only escaped because I saw some funny lines on a map and discovered the skywalks and ended up at the Guildhall. Weeks later, in a conversation with the director of The City Centre, he said, “Everyone gets lost in the Barbican,” there are design issues. Oh, it’s like surviving Kincaid Park here in Anchorage! I am not a total nincompoop; it’s a confusing place!

I’m still processing all this. (It’s what I do.) Learning that I get back up hasn’t overshadowed the surprise to my psyche that I crashed, but there were also so many wonderful things that intrigued and enriched me. Those are the next post.

Building – and Keeping – Traditions

Oh, I love New Things, but Old Things hold such comfort and warmth. Here in Alaska, far from our original hometowns, we’ve had to create our own traditions: our own Thanksgivings, New Year’s Eves, Passover seders.

Let me tell you how much I love Passover! In telling the story of the exodus from Egypt, we tell a story of slavery and freedom, injustice and social conscience. We do this while sharing a meal and enjoying each other’s company. It’s a thousands-years old tradition, but for us, now in our Third Thirds, our version is almost thirty years old, too.

We tend to alternate Thanksgiving with Bob and Connie so this year, Tim and I got the seder. This means that I got to pick the haggadah, the book we use to proceed through the rituals, engage our kids, and give meaning to the holiday.

I pull out my huge collection of haggadot and that’s where I see the years of accumulated Passovers. My very first: a faded, yellowed one on newsprint, the one we used back on Long Island, the free one from Chase and Sanborn Coffees. Mine has a post-it note on it, “Love, Mom.”

Then I have the college haggadot from Liberation Seders. Each year, we’d focus on another population that needed both freedom and our attention; One year, gays and lesbians, another year Ethiopian Jews. I had lots of them so they were the ones we first used in Alaska. This year, my new additions focused on refugees.

I remember that first seder in Alaska. Gathered together were maybe a dozen of us who’d all grown up with our own family’s Passover. We all thought that’s how seders had to be done, and then we encountered … deviation. “No, you’re not allowed to eat until we finish.” “My family always let us eat.” Sacrilege!

Mark reminded us about the time he’d been assigned matzoh ball soup. He’d had no idea what he was doing so he just got some matzoh and kind of broke them up and kind of stuck them in canned chicken broth and kind of made a mess of the whole thing. This year, he brought Brussels sprouts. Marla did the soup.

There are years of tradition in the charoset, the mixture of apples, walnuts, wine, honey, and cinnamon. One year someone introduced Sephardic charoset with dried fruit, different spices. One year, a newbie didn’t grate the apples or chop the nuts: it was like a chunky salad, not like the mortar it’s supposed to represent. And then, because one of the kids had a nut allergy, we offered a non-nut version.

Kids changed the Passovers over the years. Kids meant the introduction of the shorter haggadot, the ones with pretty graphics, the ones that didn’t take hours.

As we sat at this year’s seder, with Rebekah the youngest and so the one who had to ask the Four Questions, we looked around. Yes, there had been a time when Tim was the youngest. Max and Sophie used to do it together, and now Max is back at the table as an adult.

There was the year Sophie and I bought little toys of the Ten Plagues: rubbery frogs, little cows, plastic bugs. Somehow, when tossed out, they stuck to the ceiling. Throughout the seder, frogs would rain down on us. It was very profound. For months afterwards, I’d find plagues in the potted plants. I hope Sophie found a seder this year, that she’s creating her own traditions.

This is what I know to be true: every year, Connie will want to make the special Passover dessert; Celia will make gefilte fish from Alaska fish (halibut or salmon). Rebekah will usually slice all the eggs with my special egg slicer. Someone will grate fresh horseradish root, and I will repeat the story of the time I grated it, sniffed it in the food processor, and passed out on the kitchen floor. Karen will remember the time, after dinner, when her dog grabbed the leftover turkey plate and ate it all. Poor _____, not a Passover goes by without someone remembering the time as a baby he projectile vomited grape juice all over the single guy at the table. Things change, and things remain the same.

This is what tradition is: the memories that hold us together.

If it's Friday, I'm there

Let me tell you how lucky I am. About nine years ago, when I was starting a radio show/podcast, my friend Shirley burst into tears. She was selling chocolates in the shape of affirmations (“You are special,” “You are beautiful.”), and she had LOTS of inventory sitting in her garage. So I invited Linnea – who was starting Alaska Dinner Factory – to my house because we were all in the same boat: small businesswomen floundering.

We added Rebekah and Kory, Lori and Aliza. We talked about printers, web developers, PR needs, pricing. We invited guests to talk with us about various subjects. We promoted each other’s businesses; Lori even volunteered on mine, helping in the radio station. And we did this every Friday at 9 a.m.

We hung on for those Fridays. First we met at Superstar Bakery, then – when Linda joined us – we relocated to Terra Bella. Some businesses closed, some babies were born, some relocation happened. Eventually, we were six: Shirley, Linnea, Linda, Lori, Ellen, and me. And then, we were way more than our businesses. Every Friday at 9 a.m.

We hung in with Linnea through all her lists, thoughts of selling, and the realization things were finally working well after all. We hung in with Shirley through chocolates, a children’s picture book, and a CD. We hung in with Linda through endless staff turnover, remodeling, and now, the launching of brunch and dinner at Terra Bella (!). We hung in with Lori through her phase down and phase out. And Ellen till she moved. They saw me through the end of one thing and the beginning of another. Every Friday at 9 a.m., give or take an hour if it was hard getting up that early.

We hung in with Linnea through her grandmother’s illness, death, and the garage sale because by then, the businesses took second stage. (And because the garage sale saga was such good sitcom material.) After one morning, I actually wrote down the 16 illuminating moments our conversation had sparked: Death, Race, Compassion. Then we added weekends, other little adventures, a special birthday party, field trips. But always Friday. Now maybe more like 10 a.m.

Slowly, as people added friends, the group got large. We couldn’t fit at one table. I had trouble with side conversations, lots of things going on at once, the resultant rattling in my brain. I stopped going. I slept in. But I always knew my Fridays were sitting at the table in Terra Bella.

Things shifted. I returned. We were now a slightly different six. Judith was there, and we took her through garage sales and a new home. Sunnie – who did not have to dance on the table to get in this blog! – joined me and the guerrilla knitters with amazing creations. She sent her husband to argue with Judith’s carpet installers.

Friday night, Judith organized Joke Night at her house. We had to come with at least three jokes. Linnea had a CD of jokes to practice; she wrote them down. Linda brought New Yorker cartoons. Sunnie was sick (second appearance in blog!). We feasted on Judith’s Som Tum, ginger ice cream, and more, and we laughed and laughed. (Judith says I got some bits wrong writing about her winning the Leonard Cohen contest, but she’s okay with it.)

What has this to do with my Third Third? Every now and then, I think our friend-making days are winding down, that most people have already made their bosom buddies. That we did that in college or when we had young children. Then I realize friendships can blossom because we’re all in some new, shared stage. And that friends and getting together can be one of the structures we create for ourselves.

So what about my Friday morning group? Some of us are working, some not. Some have children at home, some not. Some are married, some not. Some are in our Third Third, some not. I don’t know where my Third Third will take me, but this I know: we’ll be at our table Friday mornings at 9 or 10-ish. Count on it.

...and the other's gold

Years ago, my friend Marj moved to Fort Collins. On a visit back to Alaska, she walked into a local art gallery and a woman recognized her and started a conversation. Marj burst into tears because that never happened in Fort Collins. So when the thought of relocation reared its head, I called Marj.

Right away, Marj said something like, “Erase that story from your memory banks.” It must have been early on because now she has lots of friends and loves her new life. “You will find one thing that interests you. Probably by fluke. That one thing will lead to another, and other people, and then you are off and running, and soon you will have to eliminate some things from your life.”

My friend Julia moved to Denver. Julia takes tons of classes and says she always extends an invitation to have coffee. But both Julia and Marj say the sooner the better. Or, as Tim says, no one wants to be your friend when you’re 80 and in ill health.

I remember a woman moving to Anchorage a few years ago. She said it was hard to get incorporated into friendship circles because most people were overextended already. They were busy with kids or jobs or whatevers and didn’t have time to regularly see the friends they already had. Even Sophie, who has tons of friends in San Francisco between both college friends and new work friends and new friends’ friends, said at one point they were chanting “No new friends!” because they were over-extended socially.

Chris thinks that in our Third Thirds, we aren’t so busy with kids or jobs so we’ll have time to put into those new friendships, and that those friendships will grow out of our new interests. But Mimi says even though his parents moved 30 years ago, their close friends at the end of their lives are still their friends from 30 years before, in the old place.

When I went off to college, I was excited about starting fresh, recreating myself. In a new place, I could be a whole new Barbara because no one knew me. (On the plane, back when they served meals, the flight attendant spilled creamed spinach on my white sweater and I had to meet all the new freshmen with a green splotch on my top. The old Barbara was not to be left behind.) Back then, I wanted a whole new future life – no history.

Relocation in the Third Third offers excitement, challenges. Marj said, “I knew my brain would appreciate the challenge of learning how to find places, learning which restaurants would become my favorites, learning what doctor I wanted to use, learning to ask everyone I met who they go to for eye exams, etc., etc.” I agree with her; I find that deliriously exciting. Tons of New Things to explore!

But when Tim and I visited Portland – and it was exciting – we were anonymous. We could go everywhere and never run into anyone we knew. When I say that Anchorage theaters mean you know everyone during intermission, I don’t mean you’re friends with all of them – maybe some – but that many of them are familiar. Our world is populated with familiarity.

I have been in the same book club for about 20 years. I have friends who were there when I met Tim. I have friends I knew when they were single, when they were pregnant, when they were married to someone else. I have reconnected with old friends when life circumstances changed. I have brand new friends and more recent friends, but they’re planted in a well-tended garden. I don’t think I’m an easy friend-maker, but I am deeply rooted in Alaska because of my friends. Thirty years of a slow and steady gathering together.

So the subject of relocation came up, and Ivy said she hates discussions like that. “But I don’t want to be an old person in Alaska,” I said.

“I’ll bring you casseroles,” Ivy answered.

Yup, that’s a big deal.

Wanted: Daytime Friends

If one of the Big Three requirements for a happy Third Third is a sense of community, you may cheerfully look around and say, “I’ve got that.” So you quit your job and pretty quick you realize that many of your friends are still working. The daytime playmate pool is pretty meager. If time goes on, and you haven’t resolved this, eventually you don’t just need daytime playmates; you need human interaction.

Talking to cashiers and the postman just won’t cut it.

When I first quit my job, my daytime socializing was lunch. If everyone was busy working, I’d grab them during intermission. This worked pretty well, but mostly, I’m not a lunch-out-every-day person. So then we expanded to meeting for walks or lunch at my house.

I don’t drink coffee and I don’t work on a laptop so I haven’t hung out in coffee houses. Only recently did I discover that coffee people have their regular places and times so they meet the folks with those same regular places and times. It’s like the college dining hall: you don’t have to extend yourself and actually invite someone or make a plan; they’re just there.

This “just there” thing becomes pretty important when you start suffering social isolation. You start thinking everyone is busy during the day except you, and you get pathetic. It is just too hard for a pathetic person to call friends and make lunch plans. You are not just lonely; you’re also socially deficient.

Even if you went to a coffee house, probably no one would talk with you. Because you’re socially deficient.

I’m guessing stay-at-home moms may have had these same social issues, but the Third Third person lives in an empty nest so there isn’t even a kid.

I’ve been pretty lucky in that I’ve always had Fridays off. Many years ago, a group of us started meeting Friday mornings. We were all sole proprietors, and when it felt a little too solo we had each other. We ended up tight friends … who are still there Friday mornings. Many weeks, Friday morning was my social anchor.

When Irene retired, she started a regular Thursday morning group that rotated meeting in coffee houses all over Anchorage. That’s a little more drop-in so everyone is “just there.” Irene did a great public service arranging that. It even works for non-coffee drinkers.

So if I were to clarify the bit about needing “a sense of community,” I’d say “a sense of community that includes daytime friends unless the structure you’re created for yourself takes care of those daytime hours.”

A therapist with daytime openings does not count.

When Structure Goes

When I quit my job, I torpedoed structure. Left to my own devices, I’d get involved with something and stay up all night. I’d have commitments, contracts, or meetings, and I’d do them just fine; but the rest of the time, I was a free agent. Nothing was “fixed” and there was no regular schedule. I did something because I felt like it, not because it was routine. In the beginning, this was joyful, glorious freedom.

When my book club read Daily Rituals: How Artists Work; everyone shared the daily rituals of their lives, and I cringed. There was nothing routine about my days. But instead of feeling liberated and free, I was beginning to feel erratic and unstable. My sleep hygiene was a mess, and I tended to drift aimlessly between being and not being in the mood to do this or that. Sometimes I ran in the morning, sometimes in the evening. I always ate breakfast, but sometimes that was at 9 a.m. and sometimes at 2 p.m. While other people might think it was the sign of a free spirit, I knew it was courting craziness.

I told my book club, “I believe the absence of routine in ordering my day is really thinly-veiled absence of self-discipline. So I did something I ‘didn’t feel like’ yesterday … and it was just fine. Then I stayed up till 1 a.m. to give me back the part of the day I’d relinquished.”

I enrolled in an art class that met twice a week and had demanding homework. That helped in many ways – and I’ll write about that more – but doing art with deadlines for projects means you’re still pushing the sleep hygiene envelope. Or maybe that’s just me; everything pushes my sleep hygiene envelope. I’d charge ahead highly motivated, get stuff done, and then walk around spacey and sleepy getting nothing done.

While I was flailing around uselessly, I came across a newspaper article which quoted Ernie Zelinsky, author of The Joy of Not Working. In the article, he said, “There are three big needs jobs provide that people have to put back into their lives in retirement….” I’ll call them the Big Three, and I’ll write about them a lot more:

That’s it! I knew structure was an issue for me. Even back at college, I learned to sign up for the breakfast plan so I “had to” get up at 8 a.m. And when I was finishing my thesis and worked part-time, I worked 8-10 a.m. and then 1-4 p.m. It was my way of imposing structure on my days.

But now, with no external source of structure (job, driving kid to school, etc.), I was rootless. I’d sit in the living room free to read a book on an afternoon, but I couldn’t relax. Somehow, without a Time to Go to Work or a Time to Go to Class, I felt like I didn’t have a Time to Relax either. I don’t think it was feeling that relaxation was undeserved, just that it didn’t have a beginning or end. My friend Sherry called it feeling “untethered.”

Yup, that’s the word.