"So this is what retirement might feel like", I found my self thinking. You see, we went away for a long overdue R & R weekend. And we were surrounded by couples who were clearly either retired or were on the verge, based on the conversations we heard around us.

And as much as I enjoyed our time away, as much as I revelled in the luxury of a high end B & B, great dining, wonderful vistas everywhere we turned, I also knew that it felt special because it was a respite within the broader canvas of a life that includes meaningful work.

Now that I am back in my office writing this blog, considering an article that is beginning to take shape and form, getting prepared for a coaching session this afternoon, I find myself wondering what that weekend would have felt like for me if I knew that it was merely a different setting for a life that was a form of 'endless weekend'. How much of it's sense of specialness, of time suspended for a few moments, of luxurious indulgence had to do with the actual experience itself and how much of it had to do with it being juxtaposed against a life that includes lots of demands on my time, lots of deadlines and appointments to be met, lots of need to use my intellect rather than simply luxuriating in my body.

For certain there are no answers, merely questions for me continue to ponder. And from where I sit this morning, I am inclined towards the view that this weekend has highlighted for me the desire to redefine the later years of life not as retirement and working but as some sort of hybrid of the two. A period in one's life where work assumes a different characteristic: it becomes much more like play you get paid for and so your desire to 'retire' from the process of work is diminished because it is such an engaging and enliving process to remain involved with.

Perhaps the question to explore is less about 'retirement' and more about a shifting attitude towards work. Hmmm, that'll give me something to wonder about in the coming days!

The photo I've used for today's posting is one I took over the weekend. For me the metaphor of the netting over the ripening grapes is a great one for today's topic. It speaks to the purpose of play/work as that thing that protects us from coming to a premature end ...there is lots of growing into ourselves that is still possible. Will be use a device such as play/work to create the opportunity for that final spurt of growth and maturation, or will be simply allow ourselves to hang on the vine and be picked to death by the birds?