My proof starts with mushrooms - and now just any mushrooms - chanterelles, the queen of mushrooms. (I'm sure they're feminine with their frilly honey coloured hats set at a rakish angle).
I grew up revering chanterelles. They grew in great abundance in the Black Forest where I spent the first few years of my life. We used to hunt for them, bring home our copious haul and have them for supper, fried in great gobs of butter and accompanied by chewy black bread. Last year, I was in Tofino and ran across a mushroom picker who had just come back from the hunt and was selling his chanterelles on the sidewalk for $5 a pound. If you know anything about these golden beauties, you know that's almost giving them away. My brother, whose memories of chanterelles are as intense as mine, was gobsmacked. We bought two pounds and brought them home where I fried them up in butter and served them with fresh rye bread. Rick and I were blissful.
Which brings me to this past September. I was hiking on the Westwood Ridges with a friend, telling her my chanterelle story because it was a year to the day that my brother and I had been out to Tofino. I waxed nearly poetic about the mushrooms. I could almost taste them. If only I could relive the experience.
Minutes later a tall, gumboot-shod man popped out of the woods carrying a ten-pound bucket of chanterelles. Would he sell me three pounds? Yes, of course he would. For the first time all year I happened to have my wallet with me because I'd planned to stop at the bakery on the way home. He happened to have a plastic bag and stuffed it with three pounds of chanterelles at $5 a pound.
Coincidence? I think not (therefore I am not?). Now, if I'm powerful enough to conjure mushrooms out of the wilderness, what else can I create? Well, apparently, an early retirement. When I turned 64 on September 23, all I could think was, "One more year until I retire." I couldn't bear to wait. I wanted to retire now! I could see and taste the joy and serenity and freedom of my life. But a whole 12 months! Akkkkk.
Every day, I woke, living for the weekend, imagining the months flying (or more likely, crawling) by. So should it come as a surprise when my publisher asked to have a meeting with me on Thursday to tell me he had to cut back dramatically on my assignments because the recession had hit and he was shutting down one of his papers? Should I really be surprised? Of course not.
But how am I to make up the shortfall? Freelance work, of course! Even better - what if I didn't have to fill it with work? What if my mother, who had some money to give away, wanted to give me enough to make my life comfortable until my pensions kicked in? Well now, wouldn't that be ideal?
So she did and here I am - I have exactly what I wanted. The secret to all this, of course, was focusing on what I wanted, not how I was going to get it. I honestly had no idea how I was going to get the mushrooms - or how I was going to retire NOW. Didn't matter. What counted was begin extraordinarily clear with emotions, mind, body and soul all aligned on what I wanted. The universe took care of the rest.
It even brought out the sun today.
I feel about my retirement (ok - semi- retirement although it doesn't feel terribly semi) is like beign reborn. I honestly feel as though my life is - well, not starting - and not really starting over - but rebirthing itself. I feel excited, yes but more than that, I have a sense of deep innner joy, peace and serenity.
I am going to re-define what retirement is. I know that these are going to be the best years (30? 40? more?) of my life. It is now - right now - that amazing things are going to happen. New relationships. Travel. Friends. Love. Horizons expanding - new languages, new planets - enough to fill me a hundred times over.
Let the retirement begin!
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