dream ranch

Here I am at home on Sunday, last day on a newspaper payroll, gate swinging open to retirement.

Sunny day. Good coffee. Office window open to the breeze. Coop at my side. Sunday media, in which I am no longer complicit after 40-years of toil, a mouse click — or not — away.

I have been on leave since December, but tomorrow is the first real day of my new status

. I cheated on my wooden sailing boat calendar, turning it ahead on the last day of May to June. The new photograph is of a beautiful English-built ketch, gaff-rigged with fore and top sails, close hauled, rail under, but sliding smoothly through blue chop in a stiff breeze off the south coast of France.

I got a little wistful remembering my modest retirement plan. This boat will remain out of reach. But I can still dream. The plan for now is to stay home and sail away at my keyboard.

I scan the New York Times, New Mexican and Albuquerque Journal, my stable for 33 years. Beau Biden, son of the vice president and reportedly an all-around good guy, died yesterday of brain cancer at 46. Islamic State is making gains in Libya — Syria and Iraq, too. Poverty, education and mental health issues weave through New Mexico stories. A 28-year-old hard case in Albuquerque, accused of killing a police officer last week, complains on a Facebook page that life has not treated him fairly.

I still my jerking knee, tell myself not to wade back in. I am still too close to my career to see it entirely. I was learning right up to the end and many answers are still at sea. And, this morning, the only thing I want to rush into is a lazy day.

I am encouraged by the reading of a PET scan last week of my now-heavily radiated and chemically attacked lung cancer. Surgery is still up in the air, but doctors say the scan looked good and there is a 40 to 60 percent chance that I am “cured” now. I’ll get a little more chemo, but this is good news a few months after diagnosis and treatment.

I am tired of being bogged down by health concerns. My energy has slowly returned, and I feel close to my former self even as my clock ticks to 66. I am ready for the day in shorts and t-shirt and a snootful of French roast. Joints and wind might argue otherwise, but I don’t feel like 65.

Yesterday, I sent my sister who lives north of Salt Lake City a hand-wringing report about Utah drought. She sent me back pictures of flowers in her front yard.