In a week I will walk out of my workplace for the last time, and if God wills it, I’ll never need to work again.

I saw winter birds today and for the first time ever felt no urge to know their names or nesting habits. Movements of their heads were movements of their heads. And once one word is dropped away, all talking follows. Civilization seems a rumor of troubles over the far hills. 

Geese rose over the lake and circled, honking only to each other, then settled back to water, re-arranged. 

This zen stillness in my mind may be connected to my retirement. You use your intellect to solve problems for money for 50 years, then that muscle realizes its rest is no longer a far-off day but is, really, here today. All the people in my company have mentally and emotionally rebuilt their jobs without my work in it. I’m a dead man, walking.

That’s not meant as melodramatic as I just wrote it; I’m happy to not be needed in that way and everyone shares the joy of retirement day for their friends. But it is worth noting down that there’s this period of strange stillness, like a that pause between breaths, between the decades of productivity defined by a paycheck, and whatever symbol of worth comes next.

The mind sighs. Eases gently into slippers. No need now to take wholes apart into parts. Geese rise over the lake and circle the same circle, honking only to each other, then settle back to water, re-arranged but not improved.