Retire? Never!

Columnist William Safire bid farewell to readers today. He will cease writing his newspaper column, but lest we think he's retiring, he set us straight. "No one pushed me," he said, and then acknowledged that he's in good shape and still drawing encouraging commentary from readers. The truth is he is simply moving into a "new life phase" starting next week when he begins work in an operating and grant-making foundation.

Nobel laureate James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, told Safire two years ago, "Never retire. Your brain needs exercise or it will atrophy."

At age 75, Safire is taking his advice! And at age 66 I am, as well. Some of my friends are cruising the high seas or the highways at this stage of life, but I am still at the keyboard punching out books, driving or flying here and there to speak, and mentoring several hundred aspiring writers through online and correspondence courses in writing. When I lay it all out here on the screen, it sounds daunting. How do I do all this? I ask myself.

Not sure, I respond within. I just do it! Because I love it and because I can and because it's important to my well-being to exercise the gifts I've been given.

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote her first Little House on the Prairie book at age 65. Grandma Moses starting painting at 80. My father started his own consulting firm in his mid-sixties, my friend Florence, one of the foremost origami experts in the country, is till writing craft books and winning awards at age 81, and my husband is a lively and agile tour guide in San Diego at age 76! (More in demand now than ever before!)

As Safire wisely counseled, "When you're through changing, learning, working to stay involved–only then are you through."

Retire? Never!