I am not alone. There are others like me. Who are they? This opinion essay in WaPo says it all: “I’m retired, and I still won’t let myself read in the daytime. Why not?”
Although I am retired, I find it hard to allow myself an afternoon with a book or a long magazine article. Just the thought of settling onto the sofa in daylight hours, especially on weekdays, smacks of laziness and stirs up guilt. If I must sit at all, it should be at a desk or a countertop to do something “useful”— answer an email, write a grocery list, look up a recipe, what have you.
Even procrastination is more socially acceptable than reading, as long as you eventually complete the day’s to-do list.
That’s me too.
April 1, 2022 was the official beginning date of my retirement. (Thanks for the anniversary greeting cards!) Sure, I have been doing chores around the house in my capacity as the House Manager, a job title that seems like a step up from Professor. I mean, I have never been a manager ever. I suppose it is time that I earned a meritorious promotion. Suggest a new job title, if my life in retirement so moves you!
But, frankly, over the past two years, I have been lazy a lot. I have spent quite some time doing nothing or playing bridge during the daytime.
I tell myself that this is the first time ever in my life that I am just living. From the years that I can recall, I have been doing something or the other for which I had to demonstrate my abilities and accomplishments. I was a school student, then a college student, engineer, grad student, urban planner, and, finally, a university professor. Even though it did not matter to me, I made sure that I did above and beyond what was expected in each of those designations because, well, that’s what I did.
Now, there is no job description for “retired” and I can simply be. And to be means that I can do whatever I want or, better yet, not do anything at all.
In this life of freedom, I am unable to bring myself to reading books or lengthy New Yorker pieces, for instance, when lying down on a couch or in bed during the daytime. Like that opinion author, I feel guilty. So, I sit at a table, which is where I am now as I blog, or in a comfortable chair, and read news and analysis online or blog or even play bridge. Long reads I keep for evenings and nights, or when I am on vacation.
When in India, which is a vacation even though all my time is spent only with my folks, even during the day, I give myself the permission to read fiction and nonfiction while lying supine on the bed or on the swing or, my favorite, on the smooth and cool floor. There is no guilt because I am away from home! You can see why I resonate with the WaPo opinion piece:
Reading, on the other hand, is what you do before you drift off to sleep, glad to have polished off another chapter as book club looms later in the week. Or reading is what you do on vacation, on a train or a plane. It’s not something woven into the daily regime, like brushing your teeth or making dinner. Instead, reading is treated as a luxury to indulge in only after work and all other activities are complete.
The author concludes with:
Ultimately, I have to get over this hang-up on my own, page by page, book by book. With practice, I’ll learn to ignore the insistent call of the everyday, and chores and other obligations will give way to the stillness and joy of reading while the sun moves across the sky.
I, too, need to get over this stupid, stupid, stupid hang-up on my own and not worry if it is night or day. I am retired, dammit!
One of the books that I read and enjoyed, in the daytime and before falling asleep too, was Maryse Condé’s Sebu. Unlike the typical book that I prefer and read, Sebu was quite a few hundred pages of reading, which was perfect for one of my India trips that I took in 2022 as a fully retired person. And, of course, I blogged about it.
Segu is an epic-level novel that weaves together traditional Africa, Islam, Christianity, and the West and its slave trade.
The tale that involves multiple leading characters with names that are unfamiliar to most of us, across multiple locations and continents, might seem like a lot of work. However, that was not the case. Condé draws the reader in, and her richly descriptive sentences make it easy to imagine the landscapes, and the people and their emotions.
As I wrote then, I did not know about Condé and her works until I was retired. Segu was originally written in French because Condé was born and raised in the French Caribbean—in Guadeloupe. And, yes, a descendant of enslaved people she was. And her ancestors came from the geographic areas in which she has set Segu—visualize West Africa all the way to northeastern Mali.
Today, I read in the NYT that Maryse Condé died. She was 90 years old. The obituary notes:
Much of her work was historical. Her breakout novel, “Segu” (1984), which sold more than 200,000 copies in France, traces the life of a royal adviser in the Bambara Empire of West Africa, which flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries but collapsed under pressure from European and Islamic forces.
A neurological disease left Condé unable to see. “She wrote her last three books, all published since 2020, by dictating them, chapter by chapter, to her husband.”
It does not seem that Maryse Condé’ retired so that she could spend days and months doing nothing. That’s what sets people like her apart, and at a much higher level, from some of us House Managers!
You have inspired me to give myself some more creative job titles, and also read a book, just for fun, just for myself! Although, I do confess, reading was always the acceptable way to spend daylight hours growing up, so when I don't read it's probably because there's something else that's a necessity or that I'd rather be doing (aka digging in the garden).