His name is Nelson. Soft-spoken with a warm, bright smile, he was introduced to me by a client. Not only is he going to fill in for me while I am away for three weeks this summer, he is also going to replace me as resident go-to gardener for at least two of my accounts.
"What are your plans, Ladonna?," Bruce had asked. "How much longer are you going to continue working?" As I approach 75, my resolve for work in my gardening business has been waning the past couple of seasons. It is evident. A regular Friday client for the past eleven and a half years, I had contacted him and his wife when I took off for a trip to visit my Idaho family, telling them of my absence. Work was left undone, and Nelson had been called in to help out.
As we talked, we mutually agreed it is time for a change, a transfer of responsibility. Nelson will take over my former role; I'll be called in for projects as needed. A transition is taking place.
Transition happens to us. We are neither pilot nor commandeer; we are simply passengers, observers from this craft called our body as change takes place. It isn't like an elective course we can sign up for. It is on the required list. The sooner we come to that realization, that understanding and reckoning as humans, the better our mental, physical, and spiritual state.
The prefix trans- is borrowed from the Latin trans ("across, on the far side, beyond"). Its meaning carries nothing that identifies with status quo or stationary. It does indicate an alteration, even an upheaval, of life as we know it.
I am no stranger to work. The story was told that I went with my mother into the tomato fields and prune orchards as a toddler while she harvested those fruits. Summers were spent in the fields gleaning berries and beans. One fall I was the sole harvester of walnuts and filberts in a neighbor's orchard.
I don't consider myself a workaholic, but I was raised by parents with a strong work ethic. For some "Cleanliness is next to Godliness." In my household, work was the virtuous trait and characteristic. After my dad retired I remember his recounting, "I haven't done anything," when told food had been prepared to eat. The unspoken message was that he didn't deserve to eat because he hadn't worked. That work ethic, that philosophy sunk deep within me.
The Traveling Gardener was established seventeen years ago when I found myself a single person with no marketable job experience. Working in the outdoors suits me well, the independence in being self-employed does too. Physical labor has its merits as my body is pushed and stretched as I weed, prune, mow, and operate power equipment. Loading and offloading the mower from the back of my truck uses muscles otherwise left to atrophy. Some of it is hard work, but it is work--and from my childhood, work is a virtuous thing. That point of view isn't an easy thing to walk away from.
However, in this, my seventeenth season, I find myself not wanting to work. I'll have a 75th birthday in six months, and I had begun feeling something needed to change, but I didn't want to let go. And then Nelson was introduced into my life. I find I am ready to bequeath my obligations to him.
It is time. I feel it. I know it. I'm not sure of the outcome--am I going to continue working part-time? I don't want to walk away from the relationships I have with my clients. I am ready to walk away from blackberry briers, hedge pruning, and hauling away loads of debris. The details will continue to unfold.
All of life is transitional. Emanating from the mind of God, each one of us made the transition seamlessly from that creation into this physical realm. Without any effort on our part, we passed through the embryonic stage, infancy, toddler and childhood; adolescence; adulthood, moving from one stage to the next to the next until we find ourselves where I am--an almost-75-year-old senior citizen facing the end of my working life and, eventually, physical life itself. It will be a full circle completed, a transition into the spiritual realm of the next life, the one where my--and your--creation took place.
The transition from that of a person who works long days and hours to one who has a lighter, more reasonable schedule is taking place quite smoothly. I have no doubt the transition from this physical life into the next life will happen just as smoothly. I hope I'll be able to tell you about it as it is taking place.
As we talked, we mutually agreed it is time for a change, a transfer of responsibility. Nelson will take over my former role; I'll be called in for projects as needed. A transition is taking place.
Transition happens to us. We are neither pilot nor commandeer; we are simply passengers, observers from this craft called our body as change takes place. It isn't like an elective course we can sign up for. It is on the required list. The sooner we come to that realization, that understanding and reckoning as humans, the better our mental, physical, and spiritual state.
The prefix trans- is borrowed from the Latin trans ("across, on the far side, beyond"). Its meaning carries nothing that identifies with status quo or stationary. It does indicate an alteration, even an upheaval, of life as we know it.
I am no stranger to work. The story was told that I went with my mother into the tomato fields and prune orchards as a toddler while she harvested those fruits. Summers were spent in the fields gleaning berries and beans. One fall I was the sole harvester of walnuts and filberts in a neighbor's orchard.
I don't consider myself a workaholic, but I was raised by parents with a strong work ethic. For some "Cleanliness is next to Godliness." In my household, work was the virtuous trait and characteristic. After my dad retired I remember his recounting, "I haven't done anything," when told food had been prepared to eat. The unspoken message was that he didn't deserve to eat because he hadn't worked. That work ethic, that philosophy sunk deep within me.
The Traveling Gardener was established seventeen years ago when I found myself a single person with no marketable job experience. Working in the outdoors suits me well, the independence in being self-employed does too. Physical labor has its merits as my body is pushed and stretched as I weed, prune, mow, and operate power equipment. Loading and offloading the mower from the back of my truck uses muscles otherwise left to atrophy. Some of it is hard work, but it is work--and from my childhood, work is a virtuous thing. That point of view isn't an easy thing to walk away from.
However, in this, my seventeenth season, I find myself not wanting to work. I'll have a 75th birthday in six months, and I had begun feeling something needed to change, but I didn't want to let go. And then Nelson was introduced into my life. I find I am ready to bequeath my obligations to him.
It is time. I feel it. I know it. I'm not sure of the outcome--am I going to continue working part-time? I don't want to walk away from the relationships I have with my clients. I am ready to walk away from blackberry briers, hedge pruning, and hauling away loads of debris. The details will continue to unfold.
All of life is transitional. Emanating from the mind of God, each one of us made the transition seamlessly from that creation into this physical realm. Without any effort on our part, we passed through the embryonic stage, infancy, toddler and childhood; adolescence; adulthood, moving from one stage to the next to the next until we find ourselves where I am--an almost-75-year-old senior citizen facing the end of my working life and, eventually, physical life itself. It will be a full circle completed, a transition into the spiritual realm of the next life, the one where my--and your--creation took place.
The transition from that of a person who works long days and hours to one who has a lighter, more reasonable schedule is taking place quite smoothly. I have no doubt the transition from this physical life into the next life will happen just as smoothly. I hope I'll be able to tell you about it as it is taking place.
1 comment:
How has the transition been? Has Nelson learned what needs to be learned?
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