Calm, what a great word. Just saying it relaxes me. Lately, it’s become my go-to mantra, especially after I receive my monthly retirement statement. I hold the unopened letter in my corporate type-A hands, take a deep breath and say out loud, “Stay calm.”
After whispering my mantra a few hundred times, I open and read the pages. Gravity pulls me into a chair, hands crumpling the news. Like so many of us, my retirement money and dreams have disappeared on the horizon like a grey dinghy drifting into the fog.
To deal with the drift, I need a good dose of non-reality to calm me down: Retirement escapism is just the ticket.
I think about placid waters and the Colorado blue sky. I tune out the TV, my cell phone and computer and crank up a daydream about an early morning paddle on a mountain reservoir.
My retirement daydream begins with a green Teardrop Trailer, matching Chevy El Camino and flat-water canoe. I gladly ride shotgun while my husband takes the wheel as we turn off the information highway and switch on to Colorado’s bi-ways in search of the next great float.
These days, I favor a quiet glide over whitewater paddling. Who knows the reason for the shift: maybe it’s the economy that demands a slower row; maybe it’s the daily dose of information overload that dictates a calmer pond; or maybe my ticker can’t take any more of O’Reilly or Olbermann, let alone a reservoir brewing with white-capped waves.
Whatever the reason, nowadays, I daydream of a lazy float, of popping a 3.2 beer sans paperback and listening to the gentle castings of my husband’s fishing line. My dream’s excitement includes shooing a bothersome bee or sycophant fly – dang thing wants my beer. My muscle-bound remote finger slowly turns the paperback pages then marks my place as I gaze at the rocky shore.
After living and canoeing in Colorado for 16 years, I’ve learned a great deal about mastering the tenderhearted daydream. It is kind of like dieting on a cruise ship: it takes discipline, commitment and many trips to the food bar to figure out how to make it work.
My trick is to boot the TV and retirement statement out of the script before they agitate the water and make me paddle for shore like a Viking invading Ireland. It’s easy for me to stir my fluffy fantasy clouds with whipped-up anxiety, churning up my billow like a Coyote Ugly bartender mixing a Jack and Coke.
After mollifying my subconscious, I get back to calmer waters.
My paddling compares to stretching out on a hammock under a shady tree in the backyard. When my sky is calm, the water is still. As the wind gently picks up, it glides my boat along. There’s a scent in the wind, owned by the trees and rocks of Colorado. It’s a blend of pine needles, bark and sun-soaked dirt; it’s hard to describe and impossible to forget.
My paddling grows a rhythm as the canoe cuts through the green water. I follow the cadence of the wind in the pines and the beat of the rocky shore.
Finally, calm.
I often play back my retirement daydream as I switch between Countdown and The O’Reilly Factor, as I file another IRA statement, as I pay for one bag of groceries that used to buy me three. My remote finger gets a rest as I close my eyes and recall the smell of the rocks and the trees.
When I retire for real, which now is only a distant dream, I’m packing up that green Camino and heading out for the next great float. My husband and I will gently push the boat off shore into unknown waters. We’ll leave the cell phone in the car and our worries on shore.
I’ll gladly take the front while my husband steers.
Bridget Cassidy of Loveland (bridgetcassidy2009@gmail.com) works as a grant writer for Grow LLC in Denver. She also writes for Women’s Magazine in Boulder and is finishing her master’s degree at Colorado State University. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
