Basses and Mountains: Year 1 of Retirement

Here is a short summary of my first year as a nonworking slacker:

We bought a new car, a 2015 Subaru Outback, in late December, 2014. I still love it.

I/we did quite a bit of hiking and traveling:
I took 13 hikes in the mountains, hills, deserts, and islands of the Pacific Northwest.
CJ and I visited the Columbia Gorge, San Francisco and Berkeley, California, Yosemite National Park, Uppsala and Stockholm, Sweden (for 6 weeks), with a side trip to the fjords of Norway (along with Oslo and Bergen).

In Sweden, I did a lot of walking in the Uppsala City Forest (Stadsskogen) and the nearby nature preserve, Hagadalen Nasten following the Linnaeus trails. We also took the long walk to Gamla Uppsala and back.

I drove the Subaru to sister and brother-in-law's cabin in Tetonia, ID and, with them, visited Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.

I played lots of music:
I performed in 5 concerts with Philharmonia Northwest (including one opera), joined Northwest Symphony Orchestra and played 2 concerts with them including a benefit for Seattle Children's Hospital at Benaroya Hall. Perhaps my favorite was the concert I played on March 28 with Philharmonia Northwest at Meany Hall on the UW campus. The repertoire was Haydn's "Mass in Time of War" and Vaughan Williams' "Dona Nobis Pacem". I found the Vaughan Williams piece especially satisfying with its lush harmonies, a choir (the Kirkland Choral Society), and inspiring text from Walt Whitman's Civil War poems. I also enjoyed hearing local soprano, Tess Altiveros. I love a good, strong soprano.

I attended Midsummer Musical Retreat (MMR) in Walla Walla, WA, in early August for a week of orchestral and chamber music and lots of socializing. I rehearsed and performed Vaughan Williams' Piano Quintet in C Minor both at MMR and at a Musicale at a friend's house.
Continued studying bass with my teacher who plays professionally in the Pacific Northwest Ballet orchestra.
I also played with a cello choir for a friend's wedding.

I attended several Seattle Symphony concerts at Benaroya Hall, heard Monster Road at Highway 99 Blues Club a couple of times, and attended Verdi's La Traviata at the Royal Swedish Opera House in Stockholm. We also heard several musical performances in Uppsala in the Cathedral, the Castle, and just around town.

I read 38 books including two by Swedish authors that I bought in Uppsala, several Anthony Trollope novels, a Conrad novel that I discussed with a book group in Uppsala, and Ta-Nahisi Coates' National Book Award winning Between the World and Me.

I took 2 classes at the University of Washington as an Access student, one on the history of California and the other on the history of the Pacific Northwest.

While waiting for my volunteer status at the Monroe Correctional Complex to be approved, I went to the prison 4 times: once to hear Seattle Symphony musicians play for the prisoners, once as a mock job interviewer for prisoners soon to be released, and twice to attend study halls for inmates attending classes with the University Beyond Bars (UBB). Next year, when I am approved as a volunteer by the state Department of Corrections, I plan to attend the UBB study halls regularly as a math tutor.

I started working with a personal trainer in August and (surprise!) 40 years of sitting at a desk does bad things to your body. We are working on reversing some of those changes.

In the coming year, in addition to continuing with hiking and music activities, I plan to spend significant time volunteering at the prison, keep in better touch with friends and family, and doing more work in our garden to transform it into a restful outdoor living space with more native plants and trees.

So... Retirement. I recommend it.

And now some pictures from the past year: