A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Coffee Shop

Not Retired, a Snowbird, or Noisy (I Think)

It started with a label. Or rather, three.

We’ve been in Tucson long enough now that I’ve been called a few things: noisy, retired, and a snowbird. None of them quite sit right. But like most labels, they reveal more than they hide—especially when you start asking what’s underneath.

Label One: Noisy

Most mornings, I work from my usual seat at the Starbucks near Picture Rocks. If you know the layout, I’m near the counter with the oat milk, the recycling bins, and the small table that catches just enough light to see Sombrero Hill out the window. It’s the unofficial corner office for my remote consulting life.

One Wednesday, I was mid-Zoom with a friend from Alabama when an older man—who sits with his wife at the same spot each week—leaned over from two tables away and said flatly, “You’re noisy.”

I paused. Took out an earbud. Looked around. Everyone else was talking, too.

“You need to move,” he said again.

I didn’t argue. I moved my setup to the patio and finished the call outside. When he left, I tried to make eye contact, but he looked past me. Even now, months later, he avoids my gaze. He wears T-shirts from Hawaii. I think he’s ex-military—maybe Navy. A Yankee’s tattoo on his calf. He has a story I don’t know. Maybe I’m part of a story he tells about that guy who Zoomed at Starbucks.

It stung. Not just the interruption, but the certainty. You are noisy. No space for conversation, no middle ground.

And yet—I can be noisy. In high school, my friend Russ and I almost got kicked out of Round Table Pizza (or was it Shakey’s Pizza?) in Santa Rosa for being too loud, too animated, too much. We were just trying to amuse ourselves, maybe impress some girls. That memory lingers, too.

So maybe it’s not about volume. Maybe it’s about visibility.

Label Two: Retired

Back in Boston, at a national conference, my friend from Alabama (the same one from the Zoom call) organized a surprise retirement party. I opened a card that said, “You’re retired now!”—complete with a wine joke.

I laughed, sort of. But also: I’m not retired.

Or am I?

I no longer get a direct deposit every two weeks. After decades of a paycheck showing up—without needing to cash it or touch it—that rhythm stopped. And with it, a certain identity I hadn’t realized I carried. Teacher. Director. Salaried professional.

Now I work on my own terms. But does that make me retired? Or just rewired?

I remember talking to a friend from Colorado: Am I retired? Or just reframing what I do?

The answer, still, is: I don’t know.

Label Three: Snowbird

Snowbird season in Tucson is real. It shapes traffic patterns and dinner wait times. It fills RV parks and golf courses. And it carries its own subtle judgment. Oh, the snowbirds are back.

Earlier this year, we were newcomers. So when someone asked if we were snowbirds, I said yes—easiest shorthand.

But a friend, someone I knew from my 2009 “40 Plays in 40 Days” project in Virginia—now an artistic director—challenged that. “You’re not snowbirds,” he said. “You’re Firebirds. You stayed past March.”

He was right. Most left by early March. We stayed through the triple digits, into May. We weren’t just escaping winter. We were living here.

Still, it’s a strange thing—to be grouped, named, and sorted into seasonal categories. Firebird felt better. It made space for our version of the story.

And What Else? Tell Me More

The desert has its own kind of clarity. It strips things back. Out here, we’re surrounded by saguaros blooming on their own strange schedules, by cholla that glow and sting, by neighbors building sheds and planning for the future. It reminds me how little we control—and how much we long to belong.

I’ve been called noisy. I’ve been labeled retired. I’ve been sorted as a snowbird. And each of those says something—but never the whole thing.

Maybe what I really want—what we all want—is the follow-up question. Not just what are you? But:

And What else? Tell me more.

Because the real work isn’t in the labeling. It’s in the listening. And that’s where the stories begin.