Second Life by Susan Spaniol


My husband and I sit on the patio wearing shorts and t-shirts, hat brims pulled low against the sun, fl ip-fl ops lying like patient dogs at our feet.


It’s January,


but we’re sipping iced tea and enjoying the snow-topped mountains that hug this north-of-Tucson neighborhood, while mule deer nibble the grass on the golf course below us. Like Dorothy in Oz, we know we aren’t in Kansas anymore…


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We’ve had this thought a lot lately. In the midst of the most ordinary activities, we are reminded that something is different – really different - about our lives now. Last June we both retired from long-held teaching positions, he as a computer teacher, and I, a media specialist. After heartfelt farewells at our schools, our personal items were loaded up and hauled home, and we did what we have done for the past thirty-fi ve summers - headed to our small cabin in the U P. where, for the fi rst time, we would be able to linger beyond Labor Day.


In spite of what the calendar may say, every educator knows that a new year really begins not in January, but in September, on the fi rst day of school. The mileposts of our professional lives are the activities and needs of our buildings and our students, and they give shape to our “real” lives as well. Which explains, I suppose, last fall’s recurring feeling of being somehow disengaged from the passage of time. How could the leaves be turning color? Why were the nights getting so cold? Halloween already? Thanksgiving? Impossible! School hadn’t even started yet! More precisely, of course, school had started - without us.


Now it is winter and we are snowbirds enjoying a long-anticipated winter stay in Arizona. We


Media www.mimame.org


“But with retirement, we have given ourselves the gift of time, a change of focus, and the opportunity to discover new mileposts to carry us forward in this, our second life.”


walk and talk, sightsee and swim. We are rested and happy. When we return home, there will be papers, closets, and lives to put in order. But with retirement, we have given ourselves the gift of time, a change of focus, and the opportunity to discover new mileposts to carry us forward in this, our second life.


Last week we spent a day sightseeing along the Apache Trail, a ribbon of dirt road winding through


the Superstition Mountains. Barely more than a narrow ledge with hairpin turns clinging to the mountainside, the trail rises above the Roosevelt Dam and the Salt River fl owing in the gorge far below. With each twist of the road, yet another spectacular vista was revealed, and I stopped the driver often to take yet another photo. I have no idea what is beyond the next curve in our road, but I look forward to seeing it – and my camera is ready!


Susan Spaniol is a retired media specialist from Hillside Middle School, Northville, MI.


Spring 2010


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