Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

I enjoy my work as a volunteer tutoring an ESL student through the Madison Literacy Network. The Network, a United Way-funded organization, is professionally staffed and run.  So I don’t have to figure out what text to use or where to find resources to help my student with her difficulties in pronunciation, for example.  In retirement, I no longer have the energy or stamina for many of the tasks that I used to accomplish with ease.  Without exhausting me, however, my two-hour a week commitment uses the skills and experience I’ve accumulated over the years.  I enjoy my student’s exclaiming with pleasure that the first hour went so fast that she didn’t notice the time or that others are impressed with the progress she’s made in slightly over a year.  (She is, of course, is bright and hard-working.)  Although we’re supposed to speak English to one another almost exclusively, from time to time I’ll explain something in Spanish.  That limits her frustrat...

Recently I spent some time visiting with my sister and her family.  She has three daughters.  Mira the eldest, adores horses.  She takes riding lessons and we went with her one evening to feed and groom the horses and tidy their stables.  I felt proud of my niece taking time to do this community work and doing it so well!  Anya and Riane, shown in the photo with me, LOVE to play.  So I spent a lot of time with them PLAYING!  It was fun to go to the park with them.  They dared me to swing and slide, climb and long jump, all of which I did to their glee!  On other days I was happy (and relieved) just to walk alongside them talking with them as they rode on their bikes.   I don't play often enough so I was grateful to my nieces for inviting me to share not only in their work but also in their play.  What a delightful balance!    I returned home rejuvenated.   As you busy yourself with work, do you also tak...