THE MEANING OF RETIREMENT FOR COMMUNALLY-LIVING RETIRED PERFORMING ARTISTS

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive transcultural study was to explore the meaning of retirement for those older people who have lived as performing artists and who are presently sharing communal living at the Casa Verdi di Riposo, Milan, Italy. Parse's nursing theory was the conceptual framework utilized to structure objectives and interview questions. Findings showed that the meaning of retirement for these communally-living retired performing artists is the emerging of an unburdening lightness as esthetic interconnections surface the was and will-be in the now moment as the diversity of everydayness enlivens through communion-solitude while anticipating the transposing vistas of the inevitable prompts treasuring the now in confirming a perpetual artistic legacy. Findings were congruent with Parse's three major themes (meaning, rhythmicity, and transcendence) and support Parse's theory of human becoming, as well as expanding the body of nursing knowledge on the phenomenon of retirement.