Getting old and staying spry and sharp as a tack

Here I am on our annual houseboat trip on the Swanee River last year. We hope to do it again this fall when the six of us old friends heave off and slowly wend our way north on the river. This four or five day time is amazingly peaceful and slow. We inspect the banks of this pristine Florida place and we have a good time cooking and eating, reading, fishing, doing puzzles and games, swimming and visiting springs. In a small boat we explore the tributaries of the Swanee.

At night I love to go up on the top deck with my head phones and iPod and dance by the light of the moon. No one sees my wrinkles then.

All of us love the tradition (and each other). This is something we all treasure as a tiny piece out of time without any relatives.

The annual houseboat trip is emblematic of retirement for me.

I know I am getting old and wrinkled and it takes me half an hour after I get out of bed to stop feeling creaky. But then I am purposeful and get to work in the new vegetable garden here or I go to the community garden at the local school.

And then I spend a few hours in my studio making quilts or painting.

This morning I rode twenty miles on a recumbent trike with a friend along a great rails-to-bike trail and it was just such a meditative kind of physical activity. I am thinking of getting such a bike for me.

In retirement, I think that each year, or lump of time, I must do something new. I have written a book, learned a new language, begun another, struggled with the digital world, spearheaded a community garden, worked for community development, made many new friends in this community. We have traveled to many countries.

I love the place we live now and it takes a lot of energy to keep it current. Our surrounding gardens are wonderful and they take enormous amounts of energy.

We have many social evenings when my husband cooks wonderful meals for friends, and we often have our grandson for weekends or longer days. We are blessed.

We rejoice every day in the beauty of the surroundings we have created. We are pleased to be able to give back to this community.

It is amazing to me that others think of me as OLD! I think of my physical self as the ten year old I was. I see the wrinkles everywhere on my body. I am as slim as I was at eighteen- but everything is differently configured!

The kids at school love me no matter what wrinkles I have. They know I am a fun person and sharp as a tack, I know each of those hundreds of kids by name.

We are both depressed by the situation in Syria and the dreck that is Florida. I cannot imagine that going into Syria with bombs will have any good outcome.