The following “letter from Seattle” is from UCSB Geography Professor Emeritus Michael Goodchild, the first director of the Center for Spatial Studies (originally posted in the seventh issue of the Center’s Newsletter, Vertices, with the title above):
In Suzhou, an ancient Chinese city that—like all Chinese cities—is now bursting with construction, there is a garden known as the Humble Administrator’s Garden (zhuozheng yuan in Pinyin). It was established in the 16th century by Wang Xiancheng, who had experienced a tumultuous official life before retiring to Suzhou. The garden was named from a verse of the poet Pan Yue, who wrote “I enjoy a carefree life by planting trees and building my own house . . . I irrigate my garden and grow vegetables for me to eat . . . such a life suits a retired official like me well.”
I retired from UCSB in June 2012, and in October my wife, Fiona, and I moved to a new house in Seattle, planning to live closer to the family, enjoy the amenities of a big city, benefit from a very walkable location, and explore a new environment. After 24 years of enjoying the paradise of Santa Barbara, it was time to buck the trend and move to damp, rainy, gritty Seattle.
It is now July, and the garden is blooming and producing vegetables in the improbable quantities typical of gardens in the Pacific Northwest. But after a year I still find myself chasing that elusive retirement rainbow. Despite all my efforts to say “no,” I am traveling as much as ever (this is being written in a hotel room in San Diego), and have a longer backlog of email and writing commitments than ever. Whether that is because of the things I took on in anticipation of being bored in retirement, or whether it is because people simply assume that retirees have plenty of time available, I cannot say. I still have five active research projects at UCSB and several graduate students to advise. My current hope is that by the end of 2013 I will finally have received a bare passing grade in Retirement 101, and will have found the carefree life of Wang Xiancheng.
Editor’s note: Many thanks to Karen Doehner, Administrative Coordinator for the Center for Spatial Studies, for making this material available.
