Archives for October 2025

It had been an old farmstead…perhaps. Some open fields hugging a two-story house above an inland lake in Michigan’s thumb. Hard to imagine as a farm. But that’s what my uncle called it, his retreat from running an Italian restaurant in Detroit’s inner city, a throwback getaway with a two-seat outhouse, a hand pump in the middle of a warped-wood platform and a rusted glider under the maple tree. But to an inner city twelve-year old, it was marvelous. Especially since there was a path, just past the two-story house, that fell down to an inland lake where an aluminum boat snugged against a rickety dock.

A typical inland lake with ten yards of soggy, weedy shoreline did not serve as a beach. But who needed a beach? For a kid walled-in by asphalt streets and dusty alleys, this was a magic lake full of bass and bluegills aching to be caught.

The first morning, he rose with the first sun. Eager to rouse his uncle to take him fishing, he ran down the steps to the front bedroom. He peeked in the door to spot his uncle and aunt sleeping and quickly popped back out. Aunt Sarah, one arm flayed across the pillow, had a marvelous brown nipple poking out of her night shirt. Two things: one, he had never seen a woman’s breast before. Whoa! Two, now he couldn’t wake his uncle without embarrassing his aunt. Shoot!

Plan B. Back in his room, he pulled on jeans and tennies, quietly slid outside, grabbed his pole and tackle box and headed down the hill. He had never seen a lake first thing in the morning. So still and flat. Skinny seams of fog hovered over lilly pads and drifted over coves along the edge. He had never done it before, but how hard could it be to row out and cast lures along the shoreline?

One oar squeaked in the spooky quiet as he pulled toward the pads on the left. A rooster sounded off somewhere. A bird chimed in the trees. Then a splash and ripples spread in an open spot between the pads. He quietly opened his tackle box, pulled out a yellow Flatfish, tied it on his line and cast. He let it sit for a second, then slowly began to retrieve. A surge of water and then a strong tug. Uh-huh! He would show his uncle it paid to get up early.

Retired trainer, and writing instructor, Joe Novara lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Writings include novels, short stories, a memoir and various poems, plays, anthologies and articles. Read more at https://freefloatingstories.wordpress.com/

My goal at this stage of life is to move closer to my true self. To shake off the shackles of past regrets and sorrows; to challenge what the world expects of me as a woman in her 60’s; to let go of concern about what people might think of my antics. I am free now, after all. I can try different jobs, since my value as a person is no longer defined by what I do or how much I earn. Maybe I’ll work on a lavender farm, or in a bookstore, or in a shop that sells crystals and beads. Maybe I’ll learn something new and start a small business. Maybe I’ll dress in wild outfits, let my hair grow out, keep my own hours.

I have so many choices now, but I can’t decide what word best describes me as I embark on this path of elderhood. The ones available for an older woman have her ugly, grumpy, or wicked: Crone, Sorceress, Hellcat, Shrew, Virago, Hag, Beldam. There are others, such as Wise Woman or Wisdom Keeper, but they seem presumptuous. I have learned some things along the way, but age is not an automatic granter of wisdom.

I see myself as like one of the witches in Macbeth, stirring a cauldron of magic potions to cast a spell: “Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble. Cool it with a baboon’s blood, Then the charm is firm and good.” Well, not quite like one of those witches, since they are described in Macbeth as withered and wild unearthly beings bent on harm. My magic, my stirring of the pot and conjuring will be done for the good of others. Mixing herbs into teas and salves for healing and health. Weaving stories out of gossamer threads of thoughts and dreams to amuse, comfort, and cause readers to say yes that’s how it is. Spinning straw into gold. Speaking out and performing deeds that reap good in the world.

I settle on conjurer for the word that best describes me as I go forward from here. There is a power to it, an energy. It is the power women have always had and that men have always known and feared. Why else would words like Sorceress, Witch, Siren and all the others have come down through the ages? I plan to make the most of it.

(From the Best of BoomSpeak 2020)   

Lee Stevens is conjuring and enjoying life in Hendersonville, NC

Moving east after decades on Central Time, we adjust to late sunsets, to falling asleep in the second inning when our team plays in L.A. or Seattle. (First pitch at 10:10 p.m.!) Our body clocks have been slow to synchronize with the turn of the globe. How can I be hungry already? Is half the day really gone? We’re Midwesterners born and bred. Retiring to Eastern Time continues to be a small but formidable adventure.

After all, we’re in a new zone in other ways. A new town in a new state. New drivers’ licenses and bank accounts. Have to find a new plumber, a new barber, have to map routes for walking and biking. How far to the grocery store? The ice cream shop? Neighborhood pub? What’s the local newspaper called?

Me time, down time. On vacations, we learned of “island time.” I can find among my shelves of vinyl a few different renditions of “Tulsa Time.” Indeed, lots of songs on those LPs have “time” in their titles. Pink Floyd’s “Time,” obviously, and Todd Rundgren’s “A Long Time, A Long Way to Go” (particularly apt for us), plus “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” by Judy Collins, “Time Out of Mind” by Steely Dan, Neil Young’s “Comes a Time.” It would take some time to list ‘em all.

As the days ticked down to our retirement, Sharon and I purged, gave away books to our students—Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, Edna O’Brien’s Time and Tide, Jack Finney’s Time and Again—donated furniture and clothes and dishes and tools. We jettisoned, cleaned out, cleared off. We’d read all about döstädning, Swedish death-cleaning, but we seemed to require a livelier, more spirited term. What’s the Swedish for “lifting,” for an almost physical sense of airiness, a higher zone (or ozone) of the spirit?

We’re lighter in this new light, retirement itself a new time zone perhaps, not so much starting over as resetting the clocks of both body and soul. On some days we experience a pleasant, nearly timeless free-floating, accepting the new in whatever way it might manifest itself. Other days, we set out to find it. The magnetic Scrabble letters on our fridge spell out the idea: “What shall we do today?” We have time, new time, for anything.

Recently retired and relocated, James Scruton reads and writes and hikes and bikes, as the mood strikes him. He takes his time.