SANTA BARBARA SPORTSTER IMAGINES RETIREMENT

We are spending six quiet easy days here at the Elks Lodge in Goleta, California. I’m not disturbed by the occasional whistle of the Amtrak that roars past our campground. The sunny salty days are calming, peaceful, lulled by the rushing traffic on Highway 101.

I live for days like these and I know Judy does too. Although she still spends many hours at her computer, she takes breaks and we walk through the forested picnic area on the lodge grounds. I could do this forever.It is probably good that I cannot talk because we would get tangled in too many discourses about the quality of life.

I believe we should follow our nose. Even Judy’s rving friend, Vicki, who spent her life in the company of horses, quoted the philosophy of the steeplechaser:“Through your heart over the fence and the horse will follow.” Judy just finished  reading to me from the book titled, “The Art Of Racing In The Rain.” by Garth Stein. She read the lines in the book over and over, “That which you manifest is before you.” I would tell Judy that every day my thoughts are to be free and wild. If I am not actually experiencing the “ the wild,” I am manifesting our next adventure, except when I am sleeping in the safety of one of our two homes,  So, if I had the words, I would argue with Judy who, I know in her mind, has already thrown her heart over the fence. Her eyes are on retirement. Another quote from “The Art of Racing in the Rain,” “Your car goes where your eyes go.” Or in this case our motor home. 

But like the Enzo the dog who is now my hero, my tongue‘s function is limited to lapping water and combing my fur. So I watch Judy fight and kick the temptations of retirement like knotted bedcovers. The bedcovers are soft and warm, comforting but entangling. She retorts with, “How much is enough?” I can’t answer, but as Enzo related, "No race is ever won in the first corner..."