Jane Flink

Unmarked Trails: a Memoir Jane Flink

This is a book for everyone who has encountered what the author calls "deep-end experiences . . . challenges that cloud our outlook like the veiled gravity of deep water." Retirement was like that for journalist Jane Flink. She was addicted to the adrenalin rush of her 30-year career as reporter, photographer and editor, and as owner and publisher of a weekly newspaper. In 2001, in response to the incursions of "relentless time," Flink and her husband, Dick, sold their newspaper and retired to a lake house in central Missouri. In her home office each week, Flink writes newspaper columns as she has for 20 years, employing wisdom, humor and a wealth of knowledge to seek identity in the unstructured world of retirement. "If work is a complement to the well-lived life and the ticket to expectation," she writes, "what is retirement -- a rocking chair, or an invitation to self-starters?" This collection of essays was written between 2003 and 2006. Finding the contemplative life elusive, the author explores the comforting realities of everyday existence, the mysteries of creative vision, and the treasures that spring from unexplored territory. Page by page, Jane Flink leads her readers with gentle artistry toward the charting of their own unmarked trails.