"Keeping Busy...But Slowing Down"

 The Photo – It may look like I am asleep, but I am busy checking my eyelids for holes!

 

Wishing you a happy (and busy) Labor Day weekend!

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“Keeping Busy...But Slowing Down”

September 5, 2026

 

“Keep busy at something; a busy person never has time to be unhappy.”

                                                 Attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

 

Shortly after retiring as a stockbroker at the end of 2015, we moved to Essex Meadows. I had no place to go that first Monday morning. I awoke exhilarated – the day ahead was mine to do as I chose. But that feeling soon wore off. I had to keep busy. Essex Meadows offers residents many choices: Bridge and Mahjong, lectures and trips, croquet and bocce, music and committee memberships. There are art classes and writing groups. As well, surrounded by Essex Meadows’ hundred acres, and a thousand more in the adjacent Preserve, there are several paths on which to walk. There is no reason to be idle.

 

Early on, I walked each morning to Walgren’s to get the paper, and Caroline and I hiked many of the trails. But writing became my focus. Better than just keeping busy, writing allows me to be creative. Around 2000, while working as a stockbroker, and with the dot.com bubble percolating, I began to write a market note. About the same time, I started writing personal essays, which were collected in a book published in 2014, One Man’s Family. A second, Notes from Old Lyme, was published in 2016. In early 2008 I had begun writing more political essays, which I called ‘Thoughts of the Day.’ And in 2017 I began writing short essays on books I enjoyed, which I called ‘Burrowing into Books.’ Writing appealed. It was a means of passing on to my grandchildren something of myself but also provided the challenge of writing – having words say what I wanted them to say. My guiding light has been E.B. White’s Rule 17 from Elements of Style: “Omit needless words.”

 

Since we have been at Essex Meadows I have published two more books, Dear Mary in 2019, a collection of letters between my parents during World War II and Essays from Essex in 2023. Over the past ten years I have written 350 ‘Thoughts of the Day,’ 135 essays on books I have enjoyed, 56 ‘Essays from Essex,’ and 68 ‘More Essays from Essex.’ 

 

But my pace is slowing, especially in writing ‘Thoughts of the Day.’ Walking is more often confined to the corridors at Essex Meadows, and I now have the papers delivered. Nevertheless, I take pride in being occupied, while remembering those words attributed to the late journalist Bob Talbert (1936-1999): “Have you noticed that even the busiest people are never too busy to take time to tell you how busy they are.”

 

Now, where are my slippers and the TV remote?