Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Carl Klaus, author of My Vegetable Love and Weathering Winter, is founder of the nonfiction writing program at the University of Iowa. He lives in Iowa City.

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Taking Retirement

Beacon Press

Excerpt

Friday / February 21, 1997

    Retirement. I've been phasing into it slowly, gently (three yearsat three-quarter time, two years at half-time), so I figured it wouldbe an easy transition when the no-time time begins a few monthsfrom now. I'd step into my new life so well prepared for it that I'dhardly miss my old one. Just a simple matter of putting one foot infront of another on my way to the brave new world of AARP?theAmerican Association of Retired Persons. As a retired person?aretiree?I'd no longer feel the old compulsions to go into the office,check the mail, chat with my colleagues, confer with my students,or do any of the other things I've been doing the past forty years. I'dhang out instead in my attic study, overlooking the backyard, andwatch the seasons unfold. But just to make sure I didn't go to seed,I'd keep a hand in by teaching one of my favorite courses in the nonfictionwriting program that I used to direct?a course in prosestyle, or the personal essay, or the art of the journal. One course ayear?enough to keep in touch with the students, keep myself stimulated,and keep my office too. But without any of the hassle.

    No more department meetings, no more committees, no moresalary reviews. Free at last! Free to tend my garden for the rest of mydays. Free to read what I want, write when I want, teach when Iwant, go fishing, visit the children and grandchildren. And travelwith Kate to all those alluring places in the glossy brochures thatclutter our mailbox every spring and fall. Hike Machu Picchu, explorethe Galápagos, take a villa in Tuscany, tour the Holy Land, visitthe Forbidden City, and behold the Great Barrier Reef. No wonderI chose to retire at sixty-five rather than seventy. Especially withmore to spend than if I were working full time?thanks to SocialSecurity and forty years of investment in TIAA-CREF, otherwiseknown as Teachers Insurance Annuity Association and College RetirementEquities Fund. My pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

    The only problem is that some of my plans began to change, andnot by choice, when I stopped in a few weeks ago to visit my colleaguePaul, who now directs the nonfiction program. The minuteI sat down and started to discuss my teaching plans for next year, Icould see the smile on Paul's face beginning to droop. When I askedhim what was wrong, he told me that our department chair, Dee,had been fretting about low enrollments in some of our nonfictioncourses, especially given the recent additions to our nonfiction staff.So, as he explained it, there'll probably be no chance for me to teacha course next year or any other time in the near future. No room forme, no need for me. No fault of Paul's or of Dee's, but those wordsreverberated in my head as I listened to him reviewing the numbers,just the way I'd advised him to do when I passed him the baton a fewyears ago. As he leaned back in his office chair, ticking things offwith his fingers, it dawned on me that I'd not been keeping track asclosely as I used to. It also dawned on me that I'd soon have fewerprofessional options than I'd imagined. I too was ticking things off.

    Then I found out from Dee that the department will be short ofoffice space for several more years. So I'll probably have to give upthe office I've had the past twenty-five years?my office overlookingthe river?and take up residence in "the emeritus suite," a three-roomghetto for retired professors overlooking the parking lot. Aplace so crammed with metal lockers and similar amenities thatonly one or two of my retired colleagues have ever used it. Onceupon a time, retired faculty kept their offices as long as they wished,so the department was like an extended family, and retirement wasnot an eviction notice. But now I might be evicted altogether, forthe emeritus suite, as I discovered just a few days ago, has been convertedinto office space to house our visiting professors and the department'shonors program. Talk about being out of touch! You'dthink I was already retired, given how little I know about what'sbeen going on around the building while I've been phasing in. Orphasing out, to put it more accurately. And not just out of my office,but also out of the community of my colleagues.

    Out of it, just at the moment when a new person's coming intothe nonfiction program who's sure to be a wonderful colleague?aperson who'll fill the vacancy created by my departure and so in asense will be my replacement. Though I met Sara just a few days agoduring her campus interview, I've been hearing about her frommembers of the search committee, also from my longtime friendand former colleague Bob, who's directing her doctoral work atBrown and sang her praises in a recommendation that's exuberantlyover the top?"She can charm bees from flowers and words fromdictionaries" Last summer, I exchanged a few e-mails with Saraabout her thesis on the essay?the subject of my own study the pasttwenty years?and just from that exchange I was buzzing about hertoo. Then a few weeks ago, I looked at her teaching materials andnoticed that she's offered courses not only on the essay but alsoon prose style, covering some of the same material that I've beendealing with the past forty years. And doing it with more pizzazz,though she's only been teaching a few years. A lot more pizzazz, asI could see from watching her run a two-hour workshop a few daysago. The room was abuzz when she finished. So when the departmentmet yesterday afternoon to consider our two job candidates,I could hardly contain myself as I waited to make a strong closingstatement for Sara?even though she hasn't yet finished her doctoralthesis and several people are worried about bringing in someonewithout a degree in hand. I don't think I've given such an impassionedtalk since my heart attack twelve years ago?I could feelthe pulse throbbing in my temples.

    Only then, in the flush of my excitement about Sara, did I realizethat I'd delivered my valedictory?that I'd probably never have anotheroccasion to address the whole department. And only then did Irealize that I was far less ready for retirement than I'd supposed?thatI have, in fact, such mixed feelings about giving up the classroom,my office, and the community of my colleagues and studentsthat I thought I'd better start keeping a dairy. A diary where I candeal with the bittersweet feelings I'm experiencing even now as I situp here in the attic writing this piece. A diary that might help methrough this suddenly dismaying phase-in-phase-out?and beyond.For I don't want my final day of teaching, just a few monthsfrom now, to be a day of mourning. I want to take retirement ratherthan feel as if it's taking me unawares. Maybe even seize it joyously.But at least behold it without looking back so longingly that I turninto a pillar of regret.

Saturday / February 22

    Last night I e-mailed Sara a one-word letter of congratulations,and this morning she replied: "Thank you. THANK YOU. You havebeen enormously helpful. As you know, this job wouldn't even existwithout you. I am fitting both my shoes into one of your footprints,and very grateful to have discovered their impression in the sand."Such a gracious and flattering note that I responded in kind?"Yourfeet are bigger than you think." And I meant it, meant it so muchthat it made me keenly aware just then of how...