The Pleasure of Nothing

Ben Avery Shooting Range
Phoenix, AZ

For the past six months, whenever anyone has asked what I did in my other life, I have answered, “I’m a writer.” This gave me a present-time occupation and station in life and put to rest any notions that I might be one of the idle retired.

Not that I’ve seen many of those in my travels. I’ve seen lots of retirees, to be sure, but they’re usually on the golf course, or batting a ball around the tennis course, or shooting at clay targets, or working in stores in pleasant part-time jobs, or riding bicycles and motorcycles, or on top of their RV’s with the hose, saving the $100 it costs to have someone else wash your rig. Nobody is just sitting around.

But as my son pointed out over Christmas, my bike chain is rusted. My tennis racket is in storage. I haven’t written a thing since my Christmas blog, and then it was mostly pictures anyway. And there’s no way you’re going to find me on the roof of this rig with a hose. Put that notion out of your head right now.

So what have I been doing?

Nothing. Just being.

I’ve been reading, and driving, (and cooking and cleaning, okay, but that’s my choice, okay, it’s not but I do get hungry and you can’t eat dust). I’ve been playing Scrabble on line, and solitaire too. And I’ve been thinking about life, and the passage of time, and the death of one friend, and the stroke and heart transplant of another long-ago friend. And I’ve reconnected with another old friend, and made a new one. I’ve spent a precious two weeks with my son.

I’ve watched people dealing with the state of the economy. I’ve seen closed stores and talked with struggling business owners. I’ve seen a friend dump everything not essential out of his motor home to save on gas, and store his big car for the same reason. I’ve seen empty restaurants and deserted malls. Everywhere except in Dallas, where the oil business seems to be still profitable for most.

Still, it strikes me that we are really adept at coping. Life, at least to this observer, goes on.

I’ve also been looking at the recap of 2008 in pictures and realizing it’s mostly about war and maimed children, the economy notwithstanding. How sad. We have so much to learn.

But there is hope and joy in the things we haven’t managed to destroy with our human meddling. The mountains of the West, the majesty of the oceans on both coasts, the sight of a jackrabbit scuttling among the saguaros. Some of the funnier signs people put up by the side of the road. I thank god and the Internet recommendation for my Canon G9 camera, which has recorded many of these magic moments despite my bumbling photographic skills.

I’m going to send my nephew the pictures of the industrial cranes in Oakland that were the inspiration for some of Spielberg’s alien monsters in Star Wars. And my Christmas card next year will carry a special collage for all my friends, but that’s all I’ll say about that. And if I ever do write that book, I’ll have a visual record to jog my memory. Of course it makes John nuts when I drive with one hand and take pictures with the other, but once an opp is gone, it’s gone, I say.

And what, in all this doing-of-nothingness, do I plan for today? I think I’ll get my nails done. They’re getting a little long for typing and making the “I’m a writer” thing harder to believe. Although I have to admit, I may just answer the next query about my usefulness in the world with these words: What do I do? Nothing. I’m retired.

Now how ballsy would that be.
Betty