Time, Money, and Mortality

Reflections after reading The Salt Path by Raynor Winn

The first book on my summer reading list, Raynor Winn’s The Salt Path, centers on her experience walking England’s South West Coast Path with her husband Moth after they lose the farm that has been their home and business for decades. As I listened, I was struck by how often fellow walkers remark on how lucky they are to have time—more time than the week or weekend most walkers do—to explore the 630-mile trail.

Here’s an exchange with the first backpackers they meet (p. 58):

“What about you, where are you going?”

I looked at Moth; where were we going? After yesterday I wasn’t sure, but he replied as if he still knew.

“Land’s End. Who knows, depends on the weather, maybe further.”

“That’s amazing, you’re so lucky to have the time.”

We watched them stride out along the cliff and waved as they passed the headland. So lucky to have the time. I put my hand on the back of Moth’s arm as his hand rested on his hip belt. His skin was hot to the touch and pink below the line of his T-shirt sleeve; same skin it had always been, but wrinkled above his elbow in a way I hadn’t noticed before. Did we still have time?

It’s unclear whether the amazed backpackers notice Ray and Moth’s sparse supplies or the dirt streaking their sunburned skin and sweat-soaked clothes. Even if they do, they don’t realize that the wellspring of the expansive time they find so marvelous is loss—heartbreaking, life-changing loss.

Before deciding to embark on the path, Ray and Moth lost a three-year legal battle to keep their farm, and the next day, the next day, Moth was diagnosed with a rare terminal nervous system disorder. Despite the hardships they know they’ll face, they choose a long walk to give them space to grapple with their grief and figure out what to do next. Time beyond the walk feels less certain than ever.

I have colleagues who took long walks during their own times of transition. An English teacher at my high school celebrated her sixtieth birthday by walking the Camino de Santiago, and our head of security spent six months thru hiking the Appalachian Trail (AT) after he retired from law enforcement. I may write about the lure of the long walk in a future post, but as I journeyed along The Salt Path, I found myself focused instead on what unscripted time right here, in my home and community, might look like. The insights Ray shares about walking and “wild camping” with Moth for months with only £48 per week to live on (sometimes less) also spurred me to reflect on the tensions and tradeoffs between time and money. 

In previous posts, I contemplated which interests I might focus on in my next chapter: writing, woodworking, teaching, environmental work, a combination? As Ray’s voice filled my truck cab on my commute or my earbuds as I did chores, I let myself consider what days without a set work schedule might look like if my wife Annette and I lived more fully into our intention to prioritize investing time in relationships, caring, and creativity over exchanging more and more time for income.

If we’re healthy and no catastrophes befall us, the rhythm might go something like this:

I’d greet the morning by paddling solo on the river at sunrise or sipping coffee while watching birds at the feeders, touching base with Annette when she wakes. The days that unspool after breakfast would alternate between those spent creating—writing, woodworking, or both, and those immersed in nature, community, or both—teaching, building useful things, biking or hiking, restoring habitats. Evenings would bring reading, rest, moonlit walks with Annette, game nights with friends, free lectures, concerts, and poetry readings, shared meals with people we love, or creativity salons, death cafés, and letter-writing campaigns in our home or church, or at a local coffeeshop or library.

Slipping my kayak into the James River on the first day of summer break as the glowing sun rises from behind the trees.

I shared this glimpse with Annette over lunch. Wait, she interrupted somewhere between community and moonlight, you’ll still need to do chores.

She said this on a day that had begun with one of my least favorite: crawling under the house, sometimes on my knees, sometimes on my belly, to inspect the plumbing and treat for camel crickets. I’d trimmed trees with a lopper and reciprocating saw that morning too. That seemed less of a chore because I got to use a power tool, and we could talk while she steadied the ladder and guided the work. But the crawlspace? I emerged covered in dust and cobwebs, face sweaty under my mask, glasses slipping down my nose. I couldn’t get to the shower fast enough.

She’s right about chores. And if we’re living on a smaller budget so that less of our time needs to be exchanged for money, we’ll need to keep doing as many of them ourselves as we can or perhaps trade chores with friends. Mowing was up next. To put a positive spin on that, I frame it as a workout—albeit one with mosquitoes.

Even before Annette’s sweaty, dusty dose of reality disrupted my reverie, I recognized that retirement wouldn’t be idyllic. So lucky to have the time. Ray replayed the backpackers’ words in her mind, touching Moth’s arm as she wondered, Did we still have time?

Within 24 hours last week, we learned of a friend who’d been moved to hospice care, the passing of my great aunt Eileen at 101, and a neighbor’s death due to complications from a fall. Aging certainly has a way of keeping me in touch with mortality. More than the time Ray and Moth take to walk the South West Coast Path, it’s mortality that I hear ticking louder and louder as I near retirement. How much time do I have left? How much does Annette?

When we decided to get married (even though it wasn’t legal then), a minister friend counseled us about our age difference. She wanted us, especially me, to be crystal clear about what that difference might mean down the road—a road we’re further down now. One of the things I said to the minister was that even five good years with Annette would be worth the risk. It sounded like so long then. Five years later, I wrote a poem reflecting on that conversation:

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Meditation on Time
           Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew. – Jack Gilbert

Five years was what I asked for,
belovéd born fourteen years before me.

I made a pledge.
Give us five years of this love, Universe,

and whatever comes after,
I won’t complain.

I imagined a quiet current carrying us.
But it was floodwater quick.

When we reached the shore I’d bargained for,
Two prayers: Thank you. More.

Joy, some say, is the hardest feeling
to abide, fear of its balloon breaking

keeping its string in our fist
even as it tugs toward sky.

When this joy ends,
when the joy that lifts me now

is torn open by sorrow’s cry,
don’t stop my tears—

remind me what it felt like to fly.


By Wendy DeGroat, published in Beautiful Machinery (2016)

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When I said that The Salt Path made me reflect on the tensions and tradeoffs between time and money, that’s only part of it. We need money to pay for housing, food, health insurance, and so forth, a baseline that varies based on where we live and how many people depend on us for their care, so we can’t choose time over money all the time. Thus, the tension. But the bigger question is how we relate to present and future time amid our awareness of our fleeting time on Earth. If I were more mathy, I’d whip up an equation to express my thoughts about this complexity of time (if you’re mathy and would like to give it a whirl, please share your equation in a comment).

Let me try metaphor instead.

Other than its inevitability, mortality is as unpredictable as the weather. Yes, insurance companies make forecasts about our deaths with periodic life tables. But knowing the average number of years a 50-year-old in a certain demographic is expected to live doesn’t tell you how long you’ll have, just as the projected path of the tornado doesn’t tell you whether it will wreck your home.

Yet, as with storm readiness, many of us scramble to prepare for the what ifs of aging, to have the evacuation kit packed and the IRA or pension or Social Security payment calculated, to stack as many sandbags against a potential flood as possible. Eat this diet. Do this workout. Take this pill. You’ll live longer. Invest in this stock. Earn another credential. Take the promotion. Save as much as you can for as long as you can—just in case you live for longer than predicted. Just in case (fill in your worry here).

We do need to prepare for aging and death, but we also need to live.

Whatever the weather, Present Time keeps flowing, turbulent or calm, swift or slow, torrent or trickle. Our boats are on that river. If we focus too much attention on stacking sandbags along the shore, then we may miss opportunities to read the river and navigate accordingly. We may not notice the sun’s warmth on our shoulders or the rain soaking our clothes, may not see the turtle or heron on the shoreline or hear the person or people laughing, crying, or quiet beside us in the boat, their hand perhaps resting on ours.

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I savor slow afternoons when Annette and I can talk and laugh and sip wine in our outdoor rocking chairs. But I’d rather repair the shed or install a rain barrel with her than have less time together because I’ve taken on extra work. If more chores are the cost of choosing time over money more often, I’ll take the tradeoff.

I made my first tradeoff for time, the first big one, a few years ago. I started a PhD program and thrived on the intellectual stimulation of learning things that stretched my brain in new ways. Then, as I reflected on my first semester, I realized I didn’t want to surrender that much time to studying for the next five years. I wanted a PhD. Wanted to be Dr. DeGroat. But I wanted time with Annette and our friends and family, and time to explore my own creativity more. I unenrolled.

That may sound like a simple choice, but I struggled. All my life I’ve been motivated by achievement. Turning away from the chance to earn a PhD felt like quitting, like I was letting down the mentors who’d written recommendations for me, like I’d wasted their time and our money. But I couldn’t know what I hadn’t yet experienced.

Once I guided my boat into the PhD waters, I noticed how the currents of Present Time changed, what was passing by on the riverbank as I plied on, how much time I was spending away from those I love whose time, like mine, is fleeting. If I were thirty or forty, I may have stayed the course. Part of that is about money—the greater potential return on investment for a credential when there are more years (or so we think) to benefit from it.

That’s the thing about Present Time and our boat. The currents change, and so does the person holding the oars. I experienced my PhD semester at 51. I’d learned a lot about the value of Present Time from practicing mindfulness and from Annette since I’d sat beside her in the minister’s office a decade earlier discussing our upcoming marriage. Back then I dwelled on the future often, too often, piling sandbags against a potential flood. Back then I would have stayed in the PhD program, adding another sandbag to the pile—and wished I’d had more time.

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Here’s a poem for your pocket until the next post: Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney. This is a nod to Raynor and Moth Winn who carried Heaney’s translation of Beowulf on their long walk. “Mid-Term Break” is a heartbreaking poem about a loss Heaney experienced when he was 14 years old. If you haven’t teared up by the time you get to the last line, you will then. If you’d like, you can also watch a video of him reading the poem for a Poetry Ireland event.

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Thank you for reading Furrow and Fire. If you’re a regular, you may have noticed that I tend to send a post every other week. I’ll be skipping June 28 because I’m presenting at the American Library Association (ALA) conference. Expect to hear from me again around July 12. Until then, enjoy the early weeks of summer.

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What’s your experience with the tensions and tradeoffs between time, money, and mortality? Share your insights by adding a comment below.

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