Friday, May 29, 2026

     I have finally figured out my job as an older retired person. My work is to read books, as many books as I can cram into my days and nights. No one assigned me this job. But for years when I was working at a job I liked and raising kids I loved, I longed for the freedom to spend a day reading. And now I have it.

     Piles of library books and purchased books are on the dining room table challenging me to hurry up and read them.  Their voices silently taunt me,” you will never be able to read all that you want.”  I want to be fair to the books and alternate reading a library book with a bought book. This work is never finished.

     Today I finish reading Elizabeth Storut’s new book, THE THINGS WE NEVER SAY. A realistic novel of the loneliness of human life in these times. And I am also reading a memoir by a favorite author, Miriam Toews, SWING LOW, an attempt to understand her father who is mentally ill and kills himself. The middle aged heroes in these two books are high school teachers for decades and well loved. The trend of my reading today, sadness and despair, and quiet hope.

     I am watching THE BOROUGHS, an 8 episodes series about a senior living community facing monsters while living active lives.  Funny and scary. Good to see my peers getting some action. Our political news is still grim as the demented leader continues to try to destroy my country.