Piece by Piece

People keep asking me how retirement is treating me, and the easy answer is—great. But the truth is more complicated.
I left the classroom four months ago, yet it feels like a lifetime ago. Teaching is so distant in my mind that I wonder if I have dissociated from the experience, like a trauma I just can’t think about. I feel as if I am emerging from a giant battle, struggling to remove the armor. Each day a little piece comes off. I am lighter and a little more free, but the sensation is so unfamiliar that I don’t always trust it or know what to call it.

Every day I wake up and lean into this new life, taking a few tentative steps while my creative soul is completely unleashed and ready to run. So I’ve been letting that part of me have free rein.

I started a stained glass project. I have fused glass, worked with a torch, and done mosaics, but stained glass is a new art for me. Still, I have complete confidence in my ability to do anything artistic. So I planned an eighteen by twenty four design of a horse, chose my colors, and started cutting glass.

The process became mesmerizing for me. Cutting, grinding, designing my own puzzle pieces. When a piece didn’t come out right, I’d try again. I learned about tools that I didn’t know existed-like a table top foiler. And I cut myself and stepped on glass and realized that stained glass is incredibly messy and should be done in a workshop or a studio and maybe not in the dining room. When I was finally ready to solder, I realized I needed some expert advice. Fortunately, I knew the perfect person.

When I began tacking the glass together and small beads of silver formed along the seams, I worried I might ruin hours of labor. My friend assured me it would come together.

My friend is Beki Javernick, the owner of Driftwood and Clay. I met her a number of years ago and I had been aware of her talent, but didn’t realize what a great teacher she is. She was patient and helpful and we laughed at my complete unorthodox way of tackling a giant project. Mostly, she just gave me the space to do my thing. It was exactly what I needed…an eclectic atmosphere of music, art, and a respect of creativity in all its forms.

As I drew lines of liquid silver, I wondered how I had lived so long inside systems that never quite fit me. My art went from glass shapes to a unified flow of mane, head and neck of a majestic animal. I was sort of shocked to set down the patina brush and see this brilliant transformation.

Usually, when I finish a piece of art, I give it away for someone else to love. The joy for me is the process and the gift of sharing. But this time, I fell in love with the end product itself.

Piece by piece, I trusted the process—making mistakes, starting over, accepting guidance without feeling diminished. I surrendered to the work and trusted my intuition. My creative self has been waiting patiently for space and light.

I might be still setting the armor down. It’s not easy because it took half a life to put it on. But I am determined to get it all off and step into freedom. So that’s what retirement has been for me–not really an ending or a rest, but a slow return to myself. And that is great.

Soon the horse will be in a window and sunlight will pass through it. Maybe that’s the real work of this season: learning how to stand still long enough for the light to find its way through me too.