Relief

It feels like a weight lifted off my back to be free of the responsibility for the reading series. I'm beginning to get retirement notions, i.e. no teaching, even passing on the editing of the review.

At breakfast out, our 4th celebration, H asked what would be different after I retire. The first thing that come to mind is that I'd read more for pleasure. I'd finally start major reading projects I've had in mind for years, first on the list being to read Chapman's Homer followed by Kazantzakis' sequel to The Odyssey. With regard to my own work, hard to say. I'd be doing something obviously. Perhaps some dark, completely uncommercial, heavy philosophical fiction. Strange music dramas. Things I wouldn't market but just stash away in my archive at the U of O for posterity or gathering dust or nuclear destruction or whatever happens.

It may be getting time to get rid of all exterior responsibilities. I've committed to teaching next year, and the year after (though I could get out of this one if I acted before the end of the year), but maybe that's it, 2 more years and I stop teaching. We'll see.