Sliding Into Retirement

It’s finally happening and without any fuss or fanfare.  I’m getting closer and closer to retirement. For five years now I’ve been planning and scheming on how to avoid the inevitable, but now it seems like it’s just happening.  I know one of these days in the not so distant future I will wake up and realize that I am not a lawyer anymore—that I’ve entered into a new phase of my life called retirement.  As a septuagenarian, that should be welcomed news.

Retirement.  Even the word used to scare me to death.  I would wake in the middle of the night and wonder how I would remake my life.  For over forty years now, my life has revolved around the needs of my clients, the merciless demands of a disinterested court’s calendar or the simply the siren’s call of the billable hour.  Vacations were few and far between, a reality if you chose an existence as a sole practitioner in the cut throat business of law.  In every sense of the word, my work was my life.  It came first above all else.  I didn’t mind because I loved what I was doing.  The law became interwoven into my sense of self.   I forgot the ‘me’ and became the lawyer.

I’m sure this isn’t an unusual state.  They tell you in law school – almost the very first day – that the law will become your jealous mistress. I remember laughing when I heard that.  “Sure, like I need a mistress in my life,” I thought.  But, of course, they were right.  I don’t even remember when it happened.  I slipped into that all consuming web.  It was exciting, intoxicating and stimulating all at once. Like a ride at Disneyland, there is a certain kind of regret when the ride is coming to an end.  You feel like buying another ticket and getting back in line to do it all over again.

So, how am I making this transition to the end of the line?  Well, it certainly hasn’t been quiet or boring, that’s for sure.  Since the beginning of the year, I bought a new home and started to renovate it to be my “ultimate dream house.”  I’ve sold my big house on the water which was a surprise to me because I never thought that I would sell it.  But, all of a sudden, it was the right thing to do. Now I look at it as a rite of passage into a new phase of life.  The new house seems to fit into the plan.

It’s really strange how I used to think big was better.  The operative word now is “downsizing”.  Small is the new incentive.  I am learning how to divest myself of a lifetime of things—many of which I don’t even remember the how or why they came into my life, let alone, why I’ve held on to them.

Because of all the activity and change, I really haven’t had time to focus on what my life will be as I move to my new retirement community.  I want to get back to writing.  Although I’ve started my third novel, it is definitely at the bottom of my ‘to do’ list these days. I will get back to it one of these days. I still have lots of characters in my head who want to come out and play.  And so as I slowly move toward the dreaded retirement, I find that it’s not so dreaded after all.

As part of the chaos that is my life this instant, is the Book Fair in Tucson to promote Tender Offers.  Of course, I will go and put my author hat on as part of my newly assumed retirement. For the first time in nearly a half century, I actually have some control over my calendar – imagine that!  Nice.

Authors’ Luncheon

This week has been exciting!  I was invited to speak at that annual Scottsdale AAUW Author’s Luncheon.  It was my first speaking engagement as an author, so I was really excited and honored to be invited.  I really had no idea what to expect, so I was pleasantly surprised to find about fifty congenial women who were interested in hearing what I had to say about my Tender Offer Books – enough so that they actually bought some. (Imagine that – I still can’t get used to that idea.  I’m still not used to this book signing thing though.  I find it difficult to understand why anyone would want my signature on anything that is not a check, but I digress.)  I had a half an hour to talk.  I worried on what I would say and how I would fill the time, but believe me, I wasn’t lost for words when someone handed me the mic.   The time flew by as I rattled on about how I wrote the books, the characters, the plot, the unsolved murder and why my villains are so villainous. It truly was grand fun.

I actually shared the stage with a well known bestselling author, Betty Webb.  Talk about blowing my socks off and keeping me humble, all I can say is “Wow!”  Betty is absolutely incredible.  She writes the Lena Jones series that are filled with socially relevant themes that have been the leading force for meaningful change.  Her book “Desert Wives” told the seamy side of Warren Jeff’s polygamy and was picked up by television.  It ultimately forced attention on forced marriage, and the reality of a cult lifestyle that most chose to ignore or worse, snicker about.  It is not often that I sit in awe of a person, but I have to say, on this occasion I was captivated — totally and completely awed.

My first thought was, “Boy!  Am I out of my league!”   It was humbling, and that’s a good thing.  (All lawyers need to be humbled once and a while. It keeps us livable.  Otherwise, we would be even more over bearing and obnoxious.)  As humbling as this experience was, there was much to be gained.  I’ve been mulling over how to react.  My first instinct was to say, “Who am I kidding?  I’ll never be a real author.”   Or, I could simply brush it aside and simply say “Well, she’s great, but she’s been doing it a long time,” and rationalize it as just one of those flukes that happen in life – kind of a mismatch.  Or it could be easy to shrink into my shell and say, “Well, I’ve had a great run as an attorney and I’ll never be as good of an author as Betty Webb.”

I’m not sure there is a correct way to react to a situation like this.  If there is, I admit, it has eluded me for decades.  All I can comfortably do is charge forward and keep trying.   Betty Webb will serve as my inspiration.  It may well be true – I may never be in Betty Webb’s class.  I may never again have an opportunity to share a stage with her, but I did have that one time.  I will let her be my new found star.  She will be my inspiration to keep me going.  So, thank you Betty Webb.  I may never be in your league, but thank you for graciously sharing the stage with me.  You are incredible.

Can A Lawyer Live in a World Where Reality Is Not Dictated By Facts?

An age old question hit me on the head today and forced me down a path that I probably wouldn’t have wandered down if left to my own devices.  The question I’ve been pondering deals with the issue of facts verses reality or in today’s more scientific jargon – which side of the brain is going to dominate.  Now as a child, I remember my father railing on the subject of facts verses emotion, usually in the context that women were non-factual thinkers and men were.  There definitely was the inference, if not the outright insinuation, that men were somehow superior because their minds were fact-based.  That was then and this is now.  I realize that I have both capacities.  I can do fact and I can do emotion.

Today, the question of fact verses emotion is usually couched in a discussion of which side of the brain controls.  There are those who maintain that a successful propaganda program hits the emotional side of the brain while rational thought hits the other side. It could be true.  I don’t know. However, I do recognize that trial lawyers use this phenomenon, perhaps without conscious thought.  The prosecutor uses an approach which goes to more toward factual analysis while the defense counsel is more prone to emotive arguments.

The whole question of fact verses emotion snuck up on me today by way of a stupid Facebook cartoon.  It was one of those insipid lawyer jokes that makes its way around the internet, gets rediscovered and makes its way around again.  Picture this.  A trial is going full force.  The judge is looking very judgmental wrapped in his black robe of power.  A lawyer is at the podium making lawyerlike arguments.  The other lawyer is seated at counsel’s table taking copious notes.  The court reporter is feverishly getting it all down to preserve appeal rights.   The twist is that instead of writing down the actual testimony, the court reporter is writing it down as a novel.  She records the proceedings thusly:

“The defendant appeared belligerent under the prosecutor’s merciless hammering.   His hands shake uncontrollably under the intense probing.   Beads of sweat break on his brow.  He feels the perspiration drip off his nose.  He is uncomfortable in his suit and tie, something he never wore while free but something that his attorney insisted that he wear for his testimony.  He squirms in his chair and takes a gulp of water.  His rage swells from within.  He is losing it; a meltdown is erupting into a murderous rage.  He lunges at the prosecutor.  ‘I did it!  Yes, I did it and I’m glad,’ he screams as he dives onto the prosecutor and starts punching him with angry blows.”

Of course, this isn’t the exact wording used in the joke.  I had to adlib a bit here because I like a good story, and well the joke just didn’t cut for me, but, you get the idea.  The type of descriptive narrative that a storyteller must engage in is very different from the world that I have inhabited for over forty years.  My world is of the old Dragnet variety – you know, “just the facts, ma’am” type of reality that doesn’t like embellishment.  Like a mathematical formula, facts lead to a predictable and of course, right conclusion.  This has been hard for me to learn because I’ve always liked a good story and somehow, ‘just the facts’ doesn’t make very interesting reading.  As I slip from the world of careful lawyering to storytelling, I realize you can take twists and turns along the way.

Too, bad this has taken me so long to figure out.   You can have all the drama – all the intensity of court without the drudgery of facts.  Sorry dad.  You lose on this one.  Like I said, I can do either fact or emotion.  They both have their place.

Two Days Without Computers and Holding

Tender Offers has played second fiddle to more important things this week.  I have totally forgotten that i am an author.  If the truth be told, the only attention I’ve paid to my books is to put them in a box — somewhere.  I am moving my law offices.  After forty years of practicing law I am over-whelmed by the stuff I have accumulated and the memories I’ve associated with the stuff that make it difficult to get rid of the stuff.

Moving day is never fun!  It is hard work with equal parts physical labor and psychological trauma.  Change is never easy, but I find as I get older, change of any description is more difficult to accept with excited expectations.  It is more likely to be meant with the realization of a bevy of new aches and pains, and unanticipated glitches and complications.  That is the reality, and that is why most sane people do not like to even think about moving.  But, I discovered a totally new and unexpected reason never to want to move again–No computers!  For two whole days, I have been without my computer and–gasp!– without an internet connection.  I must say that this withdrawal is disturbing — at least it has been for me.

That caused me to start thinking.  Unlike the millennium generation, I lived most of my life without computers–and yes, Virginia, there was life then, and it wasn’t in caves either. Believe it or not, we thought we were happy.  I am old enough to remember the introduction of television.  When I was a child the television was just coming into its own.  We were so excited to have our own TV set in our home that we sat up just watching the test pattern. For those of you not old enough to remember, the test pattern was shown when the television went off the air for the day, usually at mid-night.  Going off the air for the day was always preceded by the National Anthem usually by the Marine Corps.  There were three stations then and all three signed off for the day leaving the screen blank except for a circle with the station’s call letters flickering in shades of gray and white.  ‘That’s it folks’ was the order of the day.  There was no such thing as a computer–well, maybe that is not entirely correct. They were just starting to be developed.  They took up whole buildings and were in the hands of the government. No one ever thought that one day they might be in everyone’s pocket.

Life was different then,  There was no virtual reality.  We all had to deal with reality as we knew it, and it wasn’t always easy.   There was no instant news.  If you wanted to know what was going on, you read a newspaper or listened to the radio.  The radio and the movies were the source of entertainment.  A whole Saturday matinee cost ten cents and there were two or three features.  No one chased you out when it was over.  You could stay and watch it all over again.

I don’t know why moving forces me to reminisce, but it must be because of all the memories that are evoked  as part if the traumatic aspect.  It is always easy to look back and think that yesterday was part of the ‘good old days’.  I might have been very willing to go there if the stark reality of loss of my virtual world hadn’t hit with such forceful impact.  Going two whole days without the internet!  is this what withdrawal is all about?  Utter and absolute devastation is the only way to describe it.

What would I do?  What would any of us do without  our computers?  Without the internet? How different our worlds would be.  No, I for one do not wish to return to the good old days. Give me today, with my internet, my news and even my newly found social media.  That with a glass of wine will get me though the trauma of today’s world, even if I do have to move again.

Is Anyone Really Out There?

I have to wonder, is there really anyone out there? Are we all so disconnected from each other that we have become nothing more than Avatars living our lives in our own subjective reality. I do remember a time when our connections were made in person or on telephone. There was always something special about a warm handshake or a cherry, “How ya doing?” You worked harder on being a friend, then. Relationships were important. We were politer then—more concerned about how we dealt with other people.  When did that all change? When did we stop speaking in complete sentences?  When did it become acceptable behavior to be rude?  When did this new form of social interaction take over to condemn us to isolation?

About a year ago, I ventured into the world of social media. My publisher said, “It’s how you promote your book. Get with the program!”  “Really?” I said, absolutely innocent of the ways of modern social interaction. “Well, how hard can that be?” I asked naively. “Try it, you’ll love it,”  was the texted reply.

So off I went to the world of Facebook, and LinkedIn, Google and all the rest. Now, I even Tweet for fun and profit. I learned to blog and to capture my thoughts in essays that no one ever reads. But, then that’s not entirely true, every once and a while someone will comment on something I wrote, so I know that people actually do read my simple words. (Very few admittedly, but enough to keep me writing.)

However, this whole social media thing got me thinking. Sure it’s fun, but it does not and cannot come close to the connectivity that comes from real person to person contact. Don’t get me wrong. I love hearing from people that I haven’t heard from in ages even if it is the Facebook “poke” thing. (Does anyone but me ever wonder how a poke could be a kind and caring act?) No matter. Yes, it is grand to hear from long lost acquaintances, but that feeling cannot compare with the sound of a live human voice in an an unexpected phone call or the loving touch of a person right there next to you—a person that you can see, hear, smell and feel.

Everywhere I go I see youngsters sitting at a table in total silence while he or she engages in a texted conversation with a person across the table.  In meetings, in school, in church—everywhere people are texting out into the great cyber world of uncaring eyes. I have to view that as the epitome of a Greek tragedy.  It is much ado about nothing as the Bard would say. All the while the real world spills forth opportunities for life, love, and adventure—all missed because we are so absorbed in our alternative reality.

The saddest part is that our virtual world brings an anonymity which some people use to spill their venom and write things for release to the internet that they would never say in person. Our disconnection breeds a loneliness that isolates completely.

Does this mean I intend to stop the social media? Of course not.  I truly love it.  But, I can’t help looking back and remembering a simpler time–a time when people were more connected.  I am writing about it because I am afraid that it will be forgotten as we enter our brave new world of technology.

Two Nice Things

Sometimes progress comes in small steps—barely noticeable at the time taken, but eventually yielding results of a measurable something.  That’s what this book promotion thing is—small steps that seem to go nowhere, but then, just when I get the most discouraged—bingo—something happens!    This week two such greatly appreciated things happened.

The first was totally unexpected—a telephone call from someone I went to high school with over fifty years ago.  This dear person was my dearest friend when I was young.  We shared every thought that young girls share—hopes—dreams—aspirations and of course, crushes.  But then, I moved away and we communicated less and less frequently and soon our hourly chats, turned into an occasional once a week letter, then once a month correspondence and finally, down to occasional notes.   Gone was the sense of intimacy that formed the bonds of gossipy chats on every subject.  Ultimately, our correspondence was down to the annual Christmas letter (on my part).  She would still send off handwritten epistles filed with her charming self.  I even remember one occasion when she mentioned how nice it would be to have a personal letter. Admittedly, I did feel a pang of guilt, but poor friend that I am, it didn’t last long.

Well, she called out of the blue to tell me she loves my book and that she can’t put it down.  All of a sudden, the years dissolved and it was yesterday and I was a girl again in her bedroom talking about someone else.  Who was this person who had written a book that my friend thought was so fantastic?  My smart, sophisticated friend really liked it.  I realized I really missed her.

Her unexpected phone call started me thinking.  How many times had I thought about her?  How nice it would have been to have just simply stopped what I was doing at that time and called.  How sad it is that I had been so busy making a living, that I had forgotten how to live.  All of a sudden, her call made me feel alive, excited and unbelievably happy.  It boggles the mind to think how simple it is to spread happiness around by doing something as simple of picking up the phone and calling.

The second thing nice that happened wasn’t necessarily unexpected, but it was in my mind seriously overdue.   In fact, it had been subject of numerous phone calls and emails and lots of frustration.  I don’t know I guess L live with a different clock or something, but I like people to meet deadlines and get thing done when they say they will.  It seldom happens, so I would be the first to admit that my expectations may be a bit skewed.    But then there are some things that are just worth waiting for to be sure that they are done right.  I guess this was one of them.  Anyway, my new website is now up, and if I do so say it looks pretty fantastic!  Please check it out and let me know what you think.  If you like, be sure to share with your friends.  It’s a long road from writing a book or two to becoming an author.

New Website Tender Offers

The Second Part of the Book One Video

 

I need to come to grips with the second part of the video I made for Tender Offers–Book One: Building an Empire.  Last week, I shared a part of my video and my dismay at seeing myself on camera.  That video was only part of the story.  I won’t say it was the best part of the story, but it was the one that was the most humbling and hardest for me to watch.  Well, there’s more than just that.  Like a haunting refrain in a melody that you can’t get out of your head, my video plays over and over again to my critical review.  It is a humbling experience, but then, what lawyer couldn’t use a little humility?

Ok!  I’m over the voice thing–well almost.  With the help of a glass or two of wine, the wrinkles are less objectionable.  And, the gray hair, ditto.  But, nonetheless, I’m left with the post video critique.  It is the same kind of critique that I used to do after trials.  How could I have done it better?  What could I have said to make it sound more exciting?  Such a waste of time!

Now, I leave the struggling with that part of the video for another day, and turn to the segment that I call “the schoolmarm.”  I had to look up the word schoolmarm to see if people still use it.  I hadn’t heard it used in years, but it seemed to fit.  Schoolmarm was defined to be someone who is strict and priggish.  And, that led me to another great word– ‘priggish’. Wow!  When did I become priggish?   Like it or not, that is what I appear to be in the second segment.  This is a little harder to rationalize with a glass of wine and requires a full readjustment of attitude and demeanor.  Now, with a double martini in hand, share with me the second part of my video.  Enjoy a laugh.  

For those of you who are paying attention, yes, I did skip part one of the video, the part I like the least.  Maybe, I’ll either learn to like it, or it will grow on me like a fungal infection, but for now it is best buried in the vast world of the internet videos that never see the light of day.

Next week I record the promotional video for Tender Offers–Book Two: Comet Ride.   Between now and then I am resolved to learn not the be priggish.