A Facetime Wedding

My daughter got married in Kuala Lumpur yesterday. Registration for the couple, but now legally wed. Her husband kept saying it was really just a lot of paperwork - the bureaucracy getting its stamp on everything but still...

She found a dress to wear, he wore a jacket and button down shirt. There were three witnesses and his folks were there. After stamps and photocopies and making sure all the information was correct, they were brought to a little room with a lattice backdrop with some flowers while a woman read to them the solemnization of marriage - in Buhasa, one of the languages of the country. They had to stand, raise their right hands and swear. They were given a lovely red folder with their registration of marriage certificate. Lots of celebrating, a couple kisses and pictures.

I watched all of this on Facetime and Zoom. We had four days notice of this event. The paperwork went through relatively fast and my American daughter and her Malaysian husband took the first available appointment to get their marriage registration. 

I cried when she told me. 

I've always said to my kids that however you get married (if that is your choice) - courthouse, church, beach - I want to be there. And... I found out that it doesn't really matter what I want when it comes to how my children have to make choices in their lives. Of course they love and respect me - but they have many different currents to navigate for their own happiness. Ultimately, my faraway child knows that I want her to be happy - and this ceremony in the ministry office was what she needed for peace of mind and happiness.  Even so, I felt - sad - to be watching such an important moment in my daughter's life from the camera on a cellphone.

And... Thank god for technology. 

I wrote before about change and adapting to new circumstances - well, here I am again. I am so grateful that I could witness and chat with her during her registration process while stricken with the reality of not being able to be present to one of her most important life moments. Again, letting go of the expectations that I would always be able to make my way to her in time for these kinds of events, is something I struggle with. Is it my own family history? My history with my daughter? Or just a plain old sadness to not be there - and the ability to move on?

So I sit back and think about these circumstances and I wonder how different this really is than what so many other people feel as their adult children move out into the world as adults? 

This isn't the same way I felt when they left college and home in their young twenties - this is the feeling of children who are solid adults living their lives according to their own wants, dreams and needs. I am heading faster than I like towards 60. My husband and I talk about retirement while also taking care of elder parents. And no matter how much I enjoy my post child-rearing years, motherhood is still a huge part of my life. Its just not all of my life - not the only way I define myself as a woman. 

So how do I stop feeling left behind? How do I stop crashing up against my lack of control over circumstances that I simply have no say in? How do I adapt, shift and side step the landmines of my own anxiety? How do I reassure myself that I am not losing my baby girl and simply open my heart to love more?

Maybe I need to stop trying to control any circumstance. Maybe I need to hug my anxious self and stop sidestepping long enough to just take a deep breath. Maybe I need to allow the love within my heart to fill me up and recognize the beautiful moments that keep filling my life. 

It always seems easier to focus on the loss or scarcity; the fears. Honestly, I know that is a mindset  - a frame, if you will - that is socially and culturally driven here in the US. Re-framing with gratitude, love, and a sense of new adventures feels so much better. It makes me feel - younger. And free to also ask what new adventures I want to discover for myself.

Having my daughter living in south Asia is the definition of a new adventure. One of many.

Again and Again

Over and over in my life, I find those moments when unconscious expectations rise up to taunt me as especially painful.

Those moments when I am confronted with a new circumstance that rouses unspoken expectations. That moment of hitting a wall within that leaves me sprawled out on the floor - metaphorically speaking - trying to figure out where the pain is coming from. 

Oh, is that you, Change? Is that you, Unknown future? I thought we'd had a little chat about jumping out from behind the bushes along this path that I was simply walking down and enjoying. I mean, you did just pull off quite the show with the whole pandemic thing - talk about changing things up fast and furious. 

What am I talking about this time, you ask?

One of my children has flown the coop - and landed in South Asia for the long haul. Love, engagement, happy new life far, far away from our little corner of the Pacific Northwest. And me, being the tangible, kinesthetic learner that I am - needed to be there with her for a month to grok the fact that she isn't coming back. I understood all of this intellectually, but being there, spending time with her and her partner in their world, brought this home to me in a way I hadn't expected.  She's going to live in a part of the world that is a day ahead of me. She plans to have children whom will obviously grow up very far from me. And that's right where the unexpected, implicit expectation rose up - the image I've had in my head about who I will be as a mother and (if we are all so blessed) grandmother - my role in my daughter's life let alone grandchildren's lives. 

Look, I get it - its silly to think we ever really know how we will show up in any future reality; and yet, I think people do this all the time. We plot and plan, daydream, envision future selves as ways to often sleep at night. 

And here's the thing that is most important - just because this expectation rose up for me to grapple with didn't mean that I couldn't embrace that picture/that desire and also gently lay it to rest. Change HAS to be grieved. In order to let go, we need to shed whatever energy has built up that vision in the first place. For me, tears were part of that - but I shared those tears with my husband, not my daughter. My daughter and I cry over other things but not my sadness over her choices to follow her heart and build a life with this amazing man I will soon call son.  

It doesn't feel that long ago when I was making choices as I built my life as an adult. There were a lot of decisions made where I didn't take my parents wants and desires into account. Theirs was an often vague discontent in my mind. Even when we moved up north and took their precious grandbabies with us, I was sad and got an earful - but I was also looking forward into the excitement of a new job, a salary that we could buy a house with and a new place that wasn't the strip malls of southern California.

And that comes full circle. Now, I am the 50+ year old whose children are all grown and out of the house. They are all looking forward into their own lives, building new relationships, planning new adventures. I want them to be happy in their lives, actively pursuing their dreams - and I feel more of a spectator now rather than an active participant. As it probably should be. 

Musing on this grief and sense of change, I also hold my father as an example of how supportive a parent can be as an elder - the main cheerleader, the helper, the listener, the guide when needed. He prioritized building relationships with his grandchildren often by simply being present. He prioritized our ability to help each other with all the mundane things in life that often need a helping hand. He was approachable, available, and collaborative. And he seemed to enjoy creating his own adventures, continually crafting how he wanted to interact with the world - painting, camping, building furniture and volunteering almost everyday at the local elementary school. 

Its not that I need to let go of my children - I need to let go of those pesky expectation and outcomes that somehow cling to my brain. Adaptation takes time, reflection and sometimes, yes, grief.

Balance. Letting go, loving always, building new paths with others and for oneself.

Stormy seas

I've been lost in my own sifting and metabolizing thoughts.

The past eighteen months have been ... 

Tell me, how do we even talk about these past eighteen months? Humans are meaning-making beings that love gathering up a host of disparate experiences and saying "this is what this has been." Trauma, I believe, begins when that meaning making process hasn't found its way up into the surface of our thoughts. We try on different ways to articulate an experience (or many experiences) and it keeps coming up short. 

In the past, this country (and any other country) would build a national narrative of What Happened and How We Move On. What has become clear is that the cultural or social construct of a narrative is always driven by a particular point of view. In today's America, the national narrative is now polarized into two wildly different camps - with millions in the middle who don't dare open their mouths to share their own perspectives. Evangelism is not limited to religion anymore. Everyone is finding a soap box on which to stand and shout down anyone who has different values and beliefs. This is how social constructs are structured - you have to curate your data, marginalize alternative data, dismiss what doesn't fit your model and continue to righteously proclaim your truth. 

In the past 200 odd years, I'd say that we had one primary source of how data was interpreted. Most news was filtered through our government messaging. Outlier stories that poked holes in that national narrative were shut down hard and fast.  I'm reading Daniel James Brown's Facing the Mountain and was sickened by the way Japanese Americans were vilified in the press while not reporting on the mass incarcerations of American citizens in concentration camps throughout the west. 

Today, we have two prevailing sources of data and news - and each side demonizes the other. "Main stream media" is for the lazy left to swallow and Fox News is the fodder for idiots (and prime comedy material for shows like the Daily Show). Somewhere in the middle are the rest of us who read various platforms and often go seeking the details and research that went into what we read. That brings us to the worst rabbit hole: The research and details that can be falsified and provided by anyone out there with a "following."  As someone who has worked with research, I can usually quickly identify sources and studies that are reliable.  And still, I only do that based on factors that might be construed as faulty by someone who has a different point of view.  

Point of View. 

Its not just about having different points of view right now, is it?  The COVID-19 pandemic has created rifts due to the varied ways in which people have seen this virus as a threat.  Fear and vulnerability create strong feelings. Offensive and Defensive actions have to play out. One person's safety protocol is another person's violation of personal freedom.  It then becomes oddly necessary to fight for what one feels is the more essential value. Individual Rights or Protection of Community.  

In the past, how I decided to act in relationship to those factors was just how I was deciding to live my life. My world view governed my actions and I understood that other people - due to their own social, cultural, familial norms - had their own ways of determining belief and value sets. Being able to hold multiple perspectives as possible is a skill that I have tried to hone - but it has come up against the violent and abusive refusal to even try to find any common ground. The experience that my beliefs threaten another person's sense of freedom is strange - especially when those most outraged are affluent white people. 

I don't care if you don't want to get a vaccine - but don't tell me I'm an idiot because I choose to believe that a vaccine might help me stay healthy. If I choose to wear a mask or politely refuse to go eat in a busy restaurant, don't make it about your choices, respect my right to choose. If you are going to large gatherings, please don't get mad at me when I wait to see you for a a number of days. Think about why I might not want to hug you after you get off a plane.

Why indeed. Could it be that I am a caregiver to a beloved elderly parent? Could it be that my husband has identified risk factors that make this virus particularly scary? I also know people who can't get vaccinated for medical reasons - I never assume that I know why anyone has made their choices. 

Its been hard to make sense of how quickly we fall into rabid attacking of the Other when our safety is threatened. I'd venture to say that quality is so fundamental to the biological creatures that we are. The veneer of civility is extremely thin - perhaps already irreparably destroyed. How do we go forward as human beings? As Americans? We need a great deal of courage and compassion.

Stormy seas, indeed. Summer of 2021

Over a Year

Over a year has passed since I last wrote to this blog.
I've wondered why the desire to share my reflections has been so hard to kindle.
And then I realize that I do actually know why: Grief obliterated my capacity to share. When there are no words to describe the indescribable pain of loss - why try and fit those feelings into such imperfect forms like words?
Words and sentences form a story. A narrative of life. I've been completely unwilling to write my father out of the present tense. Not in words nor form nor substance. Not in such a public way that utilizes a few paragraphs to grope towards some sort of incomplete version of what has happened.
There has been a shift in my thinking that no longer needs to put my world into words. Reflective analysis is just dedicated and focused spin on a story of my past.
I may still choose to write about relationships and change - but I can't write about the pain that has permeated my life over the last year. I could perhaps write about the joy. Love. Care. The strong arms that hold me when I need to cry. The warmth of good friendships and amazing children. Travels, adventures, and gardens and cloth.
I don't need to anymore, but I still may choose to.
To those of you who have kept journal over the course of your life, you may understand what I'm talking about. I've spent a lifetime - forty plus years - keeping journals and diaries. Writing became my primary method of processing my emotions. I vented, screamed, raged, and dreamed my life into those journals. I've used journaling and blogging as a way to reflect and ponder, to give a less reactive self the chance to muse about the world that I live in.
Until I couldn't.
There simply were no words that could move with me on the journey of grief. I didn't want to capture moments of suffering that would become snags later. Grief needed to be fluid and unspoken. Heard but not with words wrapped around it. Implicit not explicit. The antithesis of journaling.
And yet, here I am, a little over a year later ... writing.
Because I wanted to reflect on why I haven't been writing. And so I circle back even as I move forward.

Grief and Gratitude

One of the traditions of my family is when we gather around the table at Thanksgiving, every person says what they have been grateful for - usually over the past year.

This year, that tradition is a hard exercise for me to wrap my brain around. Of course I can give homage to all the wonderful blessings that fill my life but its hard to now speak about some of those blessings in the past tense.

Yes, I'm talking about my father. Talking about him in the past tense still feels wrong. The platitudes of grief - "he'll always be with you" - "he's in your heart" - "he's watching over you" - none of these sentiments have meaning to me. Maybe they will - but not yet. I have yet to see him as anything other than the man he was - separate, vivid, uniquely himself. To give him some sort of mystical role or to incorporate him into my own self can't happen when I'm still experiencing him as a real human being.

And because I still feel that way, the loss continues to be profound.

Fishing at Tioga

I’m sitting on the rocks near the dam on Tioga Lake. My dad’s fishing pole is propped up in the rod holder, the line disappearing out into the water.

I had a bad moment when I was putting the pole and line together – I couldn’t remember which way the water bubble float needed to go. And was that before or after the swivel with the lead line?

I had frozen, my breath catching.

Dad wasn’t sitting near by to remind me of the proper way to assemble my fishing line. Usually we would sit together outside his trailer and slowly build our poles and lines making ready for the next day of fishing. I counted on his tackle box having the right hooks and leaders.

This time, it’s my tackle box.

Staring at the pole and pieces in my hands, I had stepped through the memories figuring that I would quickly discover whether I had it right or wrong the first time I cast the line out. So far, it seems I remembered what needed to be done.

I didn’t bring down his best pole. I couldn’t bring myself to use it. Black and glossy, I remember him proudly bringing it home from the Fenwick factory visit he made long ago. Stuff happens to fishing poles. Tips break, scratches. The pole has its own leather case and is wrapped in a long flannel bag. Okay, so does the one I did bring with me – another Fenwick pole – but the black one, no, I couldn’t use it yet.

My sister is using my pole that dad gave me one year for Christmas. She purchased her first fishing license just for this trip and even though she hasn’t fished since she was a teenager, she still is able to cast like she’d been fishing her whole life. We both brought in a fish at Lundy and have plans to enjoy a trout dinner tomorrow.

Tioga Lake is breezy at 7 am and its cold. The sky is a brilliant blue and the sun is just starting to hit the mountains of Tioga Pass. Its difficult sitting here without dad. We’re both teary eyed and hollowed out by our memories and grief. He is everywhere – and nowhere. As I sit here pondering the lake, the pole, and the Folgers coffee in my mug, I realize how incredibly happy I am that this place – this  wild and natural pocket of space won’t change. At least not in my lifetime. Sitting here on rocks that I’ve sat so many times before, fishing in the same deep-water hole, drinking the same coffee – I realize that it is here that I feel closest to him.

I have countless memories of watching the sun come over the ridge mountains surrounding this spot. Dad taught my children to fish here. There were days when we caught dinner, others when we left happy and empty handed. It’s over 9000 feet at the edge of Tioga Lake and the hills around us are bare rock and slate. Copper, grey and white. Whitebark and Jeffrey Pines dot the landscape. Alpine meadows are golden brown this time of year and there are a few hints of the fall colors coming.

This is his monument, his memorial.
His resting place permeates these rocks and trees and water.

And that makes this the place that I will come when I need to feel his spirit. I carry his love in my heart – but it’s here and at Lundy Lake and back beyond Saddlebag Lake that I feel so close to him. I’ve whispered to the land, giving over my grief to this beautiful landscape. It’s hard right now to feel anything beyond the searing sense of loss; and yet, this stunning wild place brings its own comfort and peace. When I’m ready, this is where I can walk with him.

The fish aren’t biting at Tioga.
I turn to the water and say, “I’m here, dad.”

Even as I speak, a lone eagle flies along the water towards me, directly over my head, and back beyond the rocks. I’ve never seen an eagle up here in all the years I’ve come. I gasp. Smiling, my heart cracking open, I start to cry.

What do the Holidays mean to me now? Not an easily answered question...

I'm not sure what the holidays actually mean anymore.
To me personally, to my family, to this country that I live in.

Is this sense of dissonance due to the current sociopolitical climate? Is it a shift within my own perspective as a parent who no longer has young children to feed the magic of the season to? Is it the rabid consumerism that has been ingrained into our cultural psyche that feels terrifying when seen against the latest tax bill?

Its a positive mix of answers that can be given to each of these questions; and yet, it is truly my response - or lack of response - that has me mulling this over as I write.

Years ago, I tried to filter out the religious Christmas carols from my usual December playlist. I am not a Christian - even though I was raised in a secular Christian household.  What do I mean by that? My family celebrated the high holy days of Christianity - Easter and Christmas - but we never attended church. Christmas was about Santa Clause and Easter was about egg hunts and chocolate. The rituals of the holidays were studded with family, food, and gifts. It was all a rising crescendo that culminated in what was under the tree Christmas morning.

When I was around twenty one, my parents had the audacity to grow tired of these rituals and it was The Year Without a Christmas Tree. I was horrified. How could they not want to immerse themselves in the glory of ornaments, stockings and outdoor lights?

I understand now.

I digress, let's go back to what I was saying about Christmas Carols. So I cut out the overtly religious carols (with the exception of Silent Night because I - gonna be honest - I love singing that carol in the shower. I change the words a bit, but its in my range). This year,  I've had my ear tuned to the myth of the perfect gift - the manic buy, buy buy that is the holiday season. Cyber-Monday. Black Friday flow charts. The news reporting about whether people are spending or not. The rich getting richer, cost of health insurance going up. Its a cacophony of frantic and hyped need - for more stuff. I guess I'm not feeling like "stuff" is going to fix any of the larger problems facing my local community let alone my country.

Listening to my streaming Christmas music I've had some wayward thoughts. Why is the Grinch such a horrible person? He's mean because he doesn't give gifts. I'm not talking about the cartoon where, sure, he steals all the gifts, decor, and food - and then gives them back when his heart opens up to the magic of community. No, listen to the song - he's a Horrible Person because he doesn't want anything to do with Christmas. The song has become an iconic holiday track. Talk about scapegoating. Baby It's Cold Outside - I don't need to say anything about that song, right? Santa Baby, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Its Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas, Silver Bells... the list goes on. As I listen, I wonder what marketing firm for which department store wrote these songs. They insidiously tie the season of peace and love to the buying of gifts. Its consumer programming at its best. Brilliant.

My playlist now is all instrumental holiday music.

I didn't think about all of this for so many years because I was busy crafting the most marvelous holiday experiences for my kids. I think I wanted them to believe in the magic - of something. I wanted them to have rituals that had them taking time to be with those that they love.

Actually, it was about fifteen years ago that I realized how hollow some of the holiday traditions were - for me. Most of that hollowness (and exhaustion) had to do with the purchasing of "the perfect gift"off of the lists that we were given by family members. It was woven into decorating Christmas trees, outdoor lighting displays and participating in multiple events that required hosting or participating in heavy food laden activities. Holiday recitals, class parties, concerts and, not to be forgotten, the foray into downtown Seattle to see Santa or the Nutcracker. I never did so many holiday oriented activities when I was a child - why were we doing all of these things with our kids?

I took a survey of my children - and Andy - and asked: What is the most meaningful parts of the holiday season to you? Trimming the tree - together. Opening stockings on Christmas morning - together. Spending time with family. That was eye-opening. We made changes to our family rituals - giving gifts that we made or experiences that we could do together. We stayed in our pajamas on Christmas day and ate leftovers. I kept trying to evolve our family holiday in a way that didn't give me this hollow feeling inside. Holidays continue to evolve - shifting, changing - but the five of us (and now the six of us) try our best to find time to simply be...together.

But what I'm realizing is that perhaps my holiday experiences have never been any more hollow than the lack of meaning which is at the heart of the American Holiday Extravaganza called Christmas. In actuality, my holiday experiences have probably been more relaxed and filled with love and meaning than a lot of people's. But its all still built on a mythic house of cards that is the high holy day that is Christmas - a day set aside to celebrate the birth of a savior that isn't mine. In fact, it seems to be a segment of his followers who spew the most spite and hate in this country at the moment - and this hypocrisy never fails to astonish and sadden me. There are some beautiful, kind, compassionate devout Christians out there - I just wish their voices were being heard. I'm digressing again...

Actually, no, that's relevant. It is all of this that has had me so very conflicted. The holidays have become the perfect storm of consumerism and experiences all geared to make us happy and joyous. And wow, we American's sure put on a good show.  Its a moving feast/play/recital/shopping frenzy - with a few lovely moments spent with people that we care about.

Now, with the kids pretty much out of the house between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I am wrestling with an ambivalence that is hard to shake. And maybe that's also perfectly acceptable because I've been hosting this Christmas performance for over thirty years. I'm ready to pass the baton to the next generation - just as my parents passed it on to me. I have a hunch that there is often a holiday renaissance when little children begin to sprout on the family tree. Regardless of that, my dearest hope is that my children will think long and hard about what they choose to celebrate - and how. My hope is that they are savvy enough to understand what is spooned fed to them by our current social meme. My hope is that they've had a chance to step out of the raging river that is the dominant mindset around the holidays - and will seek out those moments of love and giving.

And I hope to be there with them as we come together to celebrate the return of the light to our dark little corner of the world.

A Natural Connection

I'm walking very consciously out onto a mud flat. The low tide has pulled back and what remains is a half mile of muddy sediment touched by eel grass and millions of batalaria snail shells. The kids around me - a mixed age group of home schoolers out of Bellingham - run out ahead, their lighter weight and quick steps keeping them from being sucked down into the mud that pulls at my every step. Still, I keep going and when I find slightly firmer ground, I stop and look around to check on what's going on around me.

I'm out on Padilla Bay, tray in hand waiting for the kids to bring me their wonderful finds dug up from the mud. I have a shore crab and a couple worms as well as a broken shell that a four year old little girl really wanted me to have on my tray. The sun is shining, I'm listening to laughter and watching kids get covered in mud while their moms sit back on the beach chatting.  I'm torn between being irked at them for not being out here with their kids and sympathetic to the pleasure they must feel relaxing for a few moments while their kids play where they can see them. I remember how those rare moments felt.

 I've been out here off and on all spring and I'm still learning the ropes - and the names of the different critters. I'm recognizing the stories that are told and how the estuary is explained to different age groups but most of all I see the common excitement that happens when someone shouts out a special critter sighting under a nearby rock. There's always the kid that brought the wrong shoes and doesn't care. I smile because my daughter Jess never cared either. As a matter of fact, it wouldn't matter what shoes she had on - they'd be off and she'd be running around barefoot.

I'm trying to walk toe first and pick up my foot heel first. The boys have gone out farther than I think is necessary and the mud is getting deeper. I think I'm managing okay until my boot sticks - and my foot doesn't. I still have to go out farther where one of the boys has gotten himself very purposefully stuck and is delightfully surprised to find that he can't move. I'm tempted to leave him out there for a bit until he starts to understand why the teachers gave such clear warnings about the mud; instead, I sigh and send the rest heading to shore. After about five minutes of pulling every which way, his boot comes loose with a wet suction sound and off he goes, running towards shore and his friends with an adventure to share. I plod slowly behind, my clothes now spattered with mud.

It's never far from my mind why I am out here. I've had this hankering to help people connect in with incredible natural world of ours. The more time I spend getting to know how miraculous these ecosystems truly are, the more engaged I feel in protecting what I am intricately connected to. I believe that this is true for most people - but sometimes we all need a little help figuring out why it matters to our well being that there are forage fish breeding out in the sea.

The younger kids are easy. Put a shore crab in their hand and they connect. With squeals or shouts, sure, but the moment is marked as out of the ordinary - and will be remembered. The teachers here give the children a strong framework for future beach-combing. How to pick up plastic, how not to damage the animals and - the most important - how to see beyond the surface mud to the vibrant and complex system in front of them.

It's the best of days to watch children discover a new world that is so intricately connected to their own homes and communities here in the Salish Sea watershed. Helping them explore the wonder of the estuary helps me hold on to my own wonder.

If even one child walks away thinking that their individual actions can ripple out and impact other people around them - than I've had a really good day out on the beach.

I just carry extra towels and shoes in the car.

Listening to Change

Its taken me a year to notice a change within myself. I knew that moving to this much smaller town was going to be a challenge. I figured that no longer being employed and sharing that particular work community was going to give me space and time to contemplate other choices. I realized that the inevitable solitude on those long days when I was alone were going to poke at my sense of self. I knew that I was going to have to embrace patience and find the positive in my choices while not allowing frustration to drag me down.

Living in a county that has a total population only twice as much as the city I used to live in has been an oddly packaged gift. My LinkedIn account and the psycho-organizational lingo of a consulting practice; the traffic, the push and pull of what success looks like has all been dissolved by tides, watersheds, and eagles sitting in the trees.

I've spent a lot of hours listening - sometimes to the wind in the trees and sometimes to people who are quietly going about the business of preserving our ecosystem. I've listened into questions that have started feeding my own place in this new community. I've been listening to friendships deepening and to aging parents sharing their hopes and fears; to adult children who are finding their way in the world and to the loving heart of the man I am married to.

As I get older, it continues to become clear how important it is to keep learning. To listen and learn, to humbly assume the role of student. Whether it's bread making or showing up as the newest member on a non-profit board of directors - I thrive in the learning curve. It took me a long time to realize that. I think back - way back - and remember having an overwhelming sense of vulnerability when tackling something new. Whether it was worry over how I was perceived by others or a fear of failure (and what that would mean about me) - the future tripping meaning-making would paralyze me.

The grace of aging - at least for me - has been relinquishing judgments and getting fear out of the driver's seat. My own and other people's. It is also clearer now than ever before that I know so little in respect to the world at large. That doesn't mean I don't have my own opinions about how the world works. I have my values and beliefs; ideas about what is right and wrong - just like everyone else. And yet, all I know is how I can show up for this day, today.

If the past year has taught me anything, I would say that the lesson is how the future laughs at our attempts to pin it down. Even when I tried not to have expectations, I still had expectations. Adapting doesn't mean thinking through all possible permutations of what is possible - it means softening the knees, keeping the eyes open and meeting life head on with an open, curious heart.

"May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe"

From Mary Oliver -

"Sometimes the desire to be lost again, as long ago, comes over me like a vapor. With growth into adulthood, responsibilities claimed me, so many heavy coats. I didn't choose them, I don't fault them, but it took time to reject them. Now in the spring I kneel, I put my face into the packets of violets, the dampness, the freshness, the sense of ever-ness. Something is wrong, I know it, if I don't keep my attention on eternity. May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful. May I stay forever upstream. May I look down upon the windflower and the bull thistle and the coreopsis with the greatest respect."

- from Upstream - Selected Essays by Mary Oliver 2016



I love the image of the many heavy coats - the layering of responsibilities building bulk. New layers pulled over old and not quite forgotten cardigans. I imagine what that would feel like - the stiffness of movement, the heat, the weight. We do choose these layers - maybe we aren't aware of what those choices entail or perhaps we can't quite see the choice given our social, cultural coat closet - but those old choices feel like layers that were given to us. Our arms were thrust into their context whether we liked it or not. To fault them is to cling to blame. Blaming solidifies those layers into a foundation of meaning. We grow use to defining ourselves - identifying ourselves - with those many heavy coats even as they weigh us down.

But neither do I reject the responsibilities that have claimed me - I'd rather simply peel off the coats, releasing their strangled hold on who I am right now. All that bulk, each layer seemingly predicated on all the other layers. Stripping them off takes time. I softly release what no longer serves. I run my hand across the textures of fabricated values and beliefs, the meaning I have made of each particular coat - are these truly mine or am I touching the social, familial vision of who I should be and how I should waddle forward, stooped and bound by all those many heavy coats.

Stripping off some layers gives me a sense of my own form. And yet, I am still encased in layers that have yet to be peeled back - some that never will be peeled away and others that will continue to come off as I age and release myself into the care of the universe. But still, a different awareness - to go lose myself in the world, to wander upstream as Mary Oliver writes, continues to help me shed what no longer serves me.

What kind of nail do I want to be, tiny but useful?

The Elasticity of Love

When I called my mother last week she sounded so relieved. I had interrupted the gauze-like melancholia that had begun to weigh her down. She spoke about gratitude, how lucky she is, and yet there lurked a lingering despair about growing old. What she can't do anymore, what she sees in the mirror, how she doesn't sleep well.

A year ago I lived a couple miles away from my mother. Like many seniors, she lives alone. She used to reside in a 55+ community where she organized football pools, bridge games, and an assortment of social gatherings. She hated watching the ambulances pull up to the door. She hated hearing about another friend heading out on their final ride to the hospital. The community kept raising the rent and her fixed income wasn't changing - and so she moved. My sister and husband, with a deep and loving generosity, invested in a single level, ground floor condo nearby - and that's now where my mom resides. Her bridge partners come over on Tuesdays and she joins her lady friends at the local Ixtapa restaurant for happy hour.

I am not trying to condense all the facets of my mother into the above paragraph - god, no. I'm pulling out small moments and noticing how they've painted a picture in my own mind - what I've ignored, what I have not been able to deny. Perhaps by moving farther away, my time with her has become more intentional. Perhaps I've witnessed for myself how hard it can be to confront an aging body and mind. I see within her the deep well of grief; how hard it is to be the last woman standing and witness for the passing of too many loved ones. I see her desire to be held and loved, to tend and nurture. I see the fierce independence, the intelligence, and the frustration with a ever-changing technical world that won't let her feel competent.

Thinking about my mother is juxtaposed with changing dynamics in my own life. Where once I was the one who married and moved away, now my son and his wife have done so as well. This is the first holiday season that he won't be here for at least some small part of our family gathering. As happy as I am for him and the choices that he's made for his life, I still miss him. The traditions and rituals that are indelibly written in my heart this time of year are only special in relationship to those I spend time with - my family and loved ones. So I feel his absence acutely with the full understanding that THIS is the future. This is the empty nest. Where he is for the holidays is not about how much he loves me - its about the fact that his heart has expanded and loves others. I love his extended family too. No, its not a lack of love or care - it simply is a reality of adult children doing exactly what you want them to do: find love, be happy, and live a wholehearted life.


How many times did I, as a young married woman, head to another part of the state for a holiday? I moved - and took two beloved grandchildren with me. And during all of those choices - while I knew that my folks were going to miss me and mine - my husband and I made choices for our immediate family, not our extended family and certainly not taking into account what our parents wanted. My attention was focused on my marriage, the well being of my children, health insurance, good schools, careers. Exactly what I would want my own children to put first before my desires.

It's sitting here on the other side of those life decisions with my kids that brings home to me how poignant those moments were for my parents. I can empathize now in a way that I never let myself then. I had to steel myself against their anguish when we left California for the job in Washington. I didn't have time for the long phone conversations or shared vacations of my younger self. I had to make choices that didn't take their emotional happiness into account.

And I'm ambivalent about that. I kind of wish I had been better able to see and listen - even when I wouldn't change the choices that I made. I wish that my knee jerk reaction to hearing how my parents were sad or missed me - hadn't been a defensive guilt that I had let them down. I used to think that my mother was the master of all martyrs and knew just what to say to make me feel guilty. I think she often just told me how she felt and I immediately felt she was telling me that I was intentionally hurting her. I didn't know how to hear her feelings of disappointment and simply acknowledge them without taking responsibility for those feelings. I didn't know how to hold the tension between what I chose as wife and mother with being a daughter, sister, and sometimes a friend.

It is a tension. A thread that pulls us all together into a large extended family. In-laws, children, marriages, grandparents, partners. Add in careers, friends, health, new life, death, illness, geographic locations. Sometimes that thread has no elasticity. I think our culture - especially as a woman of my generation - has taught me that I must be the one to manage all those tensions all the time. Guilt, remorse, saying "I should have, could have, ought to have" - make the familial ties tender and raw.

But that's changing now that I'm on the other side of raising my kids - and watching them head off into their adult lives. It's changing as I listen to my mom talk about her day. She takes me on a journey into the twilight - the wisdom, the pain, the astonished frustration of aging in today's world. I want to be there for her on that path. I also want to share with my own children how much I miss them - and walk them through to the knowing that they having nothing to feel guilty for - that love and caring for each other, missing each other - is never a bad thing.  I miss my son right now because I have such happy memories of all our wonderful times together. That's a delightful, precious truth.

Just as my mother and father missed me. I was a delightful, precious child to them too.

Being a bright light in someone else's life can feel like a burden - but what if I accept it and simply let it be a gift of love? If I can do that, maybe I can show my own kids how its done - so they never feel that love is an unwieldy burden or an uncomfortable responsibility.

Love stretches, it holds - even when it brings tears or loneliness or grief. Even when there is laughter and joy.

You are a bright light in someone else's heart. Let that settle in.

Books and New Skins...

I've been a hoarder of books since I first discovered the Nancy Drew series when I was about eight years old. Three years later I discovered the Lord of the Rings and after that - let's just say book shelves were required in any room I called mine.

One of the best parts of college was getting to go to the campus bookstore at the beginning of each semester. As an English major, I reveled in the sheer amount of books I got to read for each class. From Plato to Faulkner, poetry to memoir, I was happy when the books started to pile up. My friends thought I was a bit odd. I worked at the college library and then moved to retail book sales. I worked in bookstores until I was pregnant with my first kid.

This was all pre-internet, of course. Books were the predominant way to explore the world - and escape the world when needed. I was quite the escape artist, being the introverted hermit that I was - and still am. For the last thirty years, my library has always been a key part of any home. Books are comfort. Books are knowledge. Certain books will always be old friends who gently remind me of who I thought I was and who I dreamed of being.

When we started the moving process that had us finally downsizing last fall, the books got packed up pretty quickly. For the most part, the library of books stayed in those boxes until this past weekend when I finished painting the built-in bookcases kindly made by Andy. Nine months had passed - nine months of one of the most profound transitions I'd ever made in my life.

And the books tell the tale.

As I unpacked and sorted through the boxes, I realized how many of the books were no longer interesting to me. I've donated hundreds of books over the years but never have I been so aware of how my own shifting interests have guided that process.

Books on organizational health and leadership - into the donate pile. Books on parenting (other than my all time favorite, Parenting from the Inside Out) - on the pile. Psychopharmacology, the old DSM-IV - goodbye. Other therapy books, psych theory, how to build a practice - gone. Taking care of an orchard, year-round gardening - heading to new homes.

There is nothing like physically moving just far enough away to find a little perspective - and figure out what really draws my gaze as opposed to what I need to be looking at to feel like a "good" parent or a "team player"; or what other people think I should be steeping myself in so I can be my 'best self" (How does anyone else really know that about someone?).

This last nine months has brought me  - time and time again - up against this question: what is important to me? And of course the follow up question is - why would I ever waste time pursuing anything that doesn't energize and excite me? Why keep books on my shelf that no longer serve me? Why hold on to old versions of who I thought I should be when it is just so easy to breathe and be myself?

Because sometime it isn't easy to set aside all that conditioning that tells us to strive for some better version of ourselves. And that image is usually generated outside of our souls by all sorts of influences - like family, society, community, age group, gender, etc. We aren't taught to be unfinished masterpieces, we're told to keep taking painting lessons until someone -someone who is not ourselves - tells us the painting is perfect.

That just isn't going to happen. There is always another someone else. And besides, the perfection "lessons" are fucking exhausting.

So I'll keep my hiking guides, creative writing inspirations, books on ecology. Children's books that are no longer in print and my first edition Simarillion. Yeats and Sagan, Palmer and Plotkin. Mysteries and sci fi, poetry and Marcella Hazan cookbooks. Books that invite me to dream.

I'll buy new books and generate new boxes of donations. New directions. New strokes on the canvas. Releasing the old, painting over old lines. Outside the lines.

A piece of poetry that I love -

Be received.

Be received by the broad earth of your worthiness

Cast off everything

Everyone else has known for you

Move gratefully from these old skins

And this time, as you toughen,

Decide

for whom?

- em claire

I like this new skin...

Midlife is an Unraveling - a quote from Brene Brown

From Brene Brown -

"Midlife is not a crisis. Midlife is an unraveling.

By definition, you can’t control or manage an unraveling. You can’t cure the midlife unraveling with control any more than the acquisitions, accomplishments, and alpha-parenting of our thirties cured our deep longing for permission to slow down and be imperfect.
Midlife is when the universe gently places her hands upon your shoulders, pulls you close, and whispers in your ear:

It’s time. All of this pretending and performing – these coping mechanisms that you’ve developed to protect yourself from feeling inadequate and getting hurt – has to go. Your armor is preventing you from growing into your gifts. I understand that you needed these protections when you were small. I understand that you believed your armor could help you secure all of the things you needed to feel worthy and lovable, but you’re still searching and you’re more lost than ever. Time is growing short. There are unexplored adventures ahead of you. You can’t live the rest of your life worried about what other people think. The time has come to let go of who you think you’re supposed to be and embrace who you are."

Chips Falling: Part 2

I sent the Where the Chips Fall post to Andy to read over before I posted it.
What follows is an interpretation of our phone conversation:

...After telling me that he'd read through the post, he hesitates, ever so slightly, searching for the right way to ask - “So, were you just talking about doing something or are you serious – I mean, there’s a lot of little stuff that needs doing-"

Basically – was I serious or was I just blowing wind? Hmmm. Well. Time to show my cards.

“I think my project is going to be the pantry.”

The current pantry has the most rickety, ill-planned shelves you have ever seen. I need the space. I need to find my flax seeds, jars of homemade jam and pasta sauce. I dropped my bin of flour last week because the shelf tipped slightly as I was putting it back. That was not a happy moment.

Long pause. “The pantry?” Slight confusion and then I can hear his thoughts catch up, “Oh, the pantry shelves. Okay, alright. Well, you’ll need to take everything out, and you’ll want to –"

“Andy.” Said just sharp enough to stop his high speed train of project design.

“What?”

Now I take a moment to find my words, “I want to do this. I want to be able to ask you questions, have you show me how to do what needs to be done but - I.Want.To.Do.This.”

“Oh.”

Silence. Okay, I think he feels shut out - that’s not what I wanted. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I attempt explaining, “I want to do the research, find what I want and then deconstruct it with your help. I want to do the work – so you don’t have yet another thing to think about­ - you have enough projects and enough on your plate and I figured that this was fairly straightforward and that it might be a great way for me to figure out how to use a table saw and power drill.”

“We don’t have a table saw.” He says absentmindedly. Uh oh. I hear him typing away on his computer, “huh, doesn’t look like IKEA has any decent options either…”

“WILL YOU STOP????” He can’t see me but I point to my own chest, “MY PROJECT!” And I wasn’t yelling, just being forceful, honest. Kind of. This was harder than I thought to get through to the Renaissance man that I am married to. “Look,” I say, trying for reasonable, “I’ve just sent you a link for a DIY pantry project that I found.”

Click, click. “Huh. Oh, that looks great. Okay, yeah, no problem. We’ll need –“ and he starts rattling off lengths and widths of wood, types of screws, braces and god knows what else. I love this man. He is the most capable, smartest man I know. If I ever get to choose one person on a desert island with me – it would be him with a Swiss Army knife. I could digress into other reasons why I would want him with me but his mad MacGyver skills is almost at the top. And he is having a really hard time allowing me to take point on this.

“Andy.”

"Hmmm?" I can hear the excitement – and humor in his voice.

“What are you doing?”

Now he sighs, “Gosh, hon, I guess I got a little excited about working on a project with you.”

Oh. Trump card. Not fair.

How do I resist? He is so helpful, so sweet - and will have my shelves done by the end of the weekend if  I don't nip this in the bud right now.

Twenty nine years of marriage has me saying, “Sweetheart, you will be helping me, we will be doing this together, but you are going to teach me how to put up my pantry shelves. You are going to answer my questions, teach me about buying straight wood and grimace when I cut something wrong. Let me take the lead on this – let me ask, help me learn.”

“Okay,” He draws out the word on a sigh but I can tell he’s fine with what I’m asking. Maybe he was just testing my commitment. Maybe he figures he'll be doing the work anyway-  ha! I don't think so. I have plans. I need this. 

And...

Old pantry shelves gone...getting ready for the new

I haven’t told him yet what my next project is going to be. We'll see how the first one goes. 

Update... two months later....

Using the biscuit cutter

New and improved

Project inspiration: The Craft Patch blog's How to Build Pantry Shelves

Seeing just where those chips fell...

Daring to let go – and letting go – creates a certain sense of free-fall.

For a limited amount of time.

We’ve moved. The old house is up for sale, the new house – well, the new house still has boxes stacked in corners; but, for the most part, it is a wonderful place to be.

But wonderful is quite relative. With the right amount of make-up, deflection and lighting – something can look quite beautiful but be rather ugly on the inside. Like plumbing that leaks and clogged drains. Hot and cold water reversed – only discovered when hot water finally works. Wood rot, mice, water six inches deep under the house when it rains. And ivy.

Who plants the pernicious weed known as ivy?

I’ll get back to the ivy in a minute. This new house, so beautiful with its seductive view, has a few problems. Actually, the “few problems” fill a 2-page spreadsheet.  And most of the problems are manageable – if we could clone Andy and hire a professional wrecking crew. Did I just say that? Yes I did. Perhaps what I mean is a contractor, landscaper, plumber, electrician, carpenter and erosion specialist.

Patience – as a state of being – has suddenly become my mantra. Free-fall is over and the landing was a little rougher than anticipated. Most of the time I can look around and feel the blessings that surround me but when one more small thing suddenly reveals a glaring problem, its hard to keep everything in perspective. Last Sunday all I felt was defeat. Because I decided to go start in on the ivy off of a small stone patio. Not a small project like, say, clean out all the gutters or install a sump pump. No, I picked the ivy. And, as you can imagine,  it was an overwhelming task – completely daunting with little to show for a good hour’s work. Frustrated, tired, and seeing just how deep the tangle of ivy was, I pulled viciously on a vine using the tried and true magical swear words that my father used to use and I wasn’t supposed to repeat … and that god damn sucker came up and viciously slapped me in the eye.

Stunned, in pain, my eyes now blurred with tears – and one eye that couldn’t open, I tackled that fucking vine until it lay limp on the pile of other torn out vines. Yes, the small pile. And then I stood there, trying to breathe past the pain in my eye, wondering if I had done any serious damage, wondering if I had to go wash it out, wondering what the hell I was doing knee deep in an ivy patch while the sounds of Andy tearing apart a wood rotted deck around the corner mixed in with the sounds of the surf right below me. The world continued to spin, the day was beautiful  - but I looked up at this house and felt the slap all over again. The woman who sold this house to us lied about so many things. It blows my mind. Our other house sits empty and staged waiting for someone to pay for the privilege of living in its well-constructed rooms.

And I asked myself – had this move really been worth it? Was this move up the coast, away from family, friends, community, work – worth it? How can I find the patience to let go of the “list” when I feel like I’m chained to its priorities?  Andy looks at the list and he sees doable action items that he, himself, can complete.  It might take awhile, but he has the confidence, skills and strength – god, the energy – to pretty much do whatever needs doing. He was practicing how to sweat copper pipes the other day. If anything, I need to be calm, patient and at peace – just so he doesn’t kill himself trying to take on more projects while also juggling a full time job, commuting, and managing the other house down south.

For the last twenty years, I’ve lived a life that has come with a lot of privilege. I still do but the financial faucet is closed down while we wait on the sale of the other house. I feel a little awkward saying this but my impatience stems as much from not being able to simply make a bunch of phone calls to get this house in working order as it does from my own inability to start in on some DIY projects that might challenge my inept skill set. I’ve spent the last twenty years developing my yard maintenance skills – and you already heard  what the ivy had to say about that.

So what to do?

It took a couple days. I didn’t sulk – too much. I studied the list. And realized that I was going to have to start at the beginning.

I was going to have to learn.

I was going to have to tackle learning a new skill so that I could tick something off that long list of projects. This would undoubtedly result in me driving Andy nuts with questions on how to use power tools -which actually sounds pretty amusing. This would also include making mistakes -okay, I could take some lumps - and getting frustrated which meant I would get to channel my dad when the nail doesn’t go in straight – but at least I would be doing something. I need to be part of the solution, not waiting for other people to make all of these problems go away.

I've got some ideas but I want to do my research to make sure that I'm perfectly capable of seeing whatever I pick through to the end.

With help of course.

Learning means I need to ask questions, teach myself and be taught.

I am going to find my string cutter for the ivy though - no more ms. nice...

Part 2 - here

Standing on the deck

I am enthralled with the water.

Standing on the deck, I can look out over Burrows Bay to the Olympic mountains, Burrows Island, a marina, a state park with a peekaboo view of Lopez Island. But my eyes are drawn downward to the water itself, this ever moving, fluid body that can go from glass to white caps in what seems like a blink of an eye. One day it is a lake, the next I have waves crashing to shore. Shorebirds are scattered across the surface, diving, flying, fishing. A heron likes to stand on a lone rock that emerges as the tide withdraws.

It is at night right now, when the lowest tide of the day happens, that a completely different world is revealed. A long spit of beach appears. The water retreats back towards the channel and I can see just how shallow this part of the bay is. The light of the moon reflects off the dark masses of exposed tidal land and I feel impatient to see this in the day, when I can put on my mud boots and go wander down among the rocks.

I leave the window open at night just to hear the waves coming to shore. Depending on the weather, it is either a cacophony of stormy confusion or a rhythmic lullaby.

Logs came ashore yesterday. Today they are gone. The tidal difference is close to 9 feet in a given day.

I feel enchanted, mesmerized. I find myself standing at windows, tasks left where I dropped them.
As this new house fills with our belongings, I am almost startled to keep realizing that this is my new home.

What does it mean to live somewhere that captures your imagination everywhere you look?

I don't quite know what this new world means in relationship to my old world. That might sound a little over the top but I'm beginning to realize that Andy and I have put in motion a transition that will change so many different aspects of our lives. I suspected before, now I know.

We have so many dear friends and family who have moved all over the world in pursuit of careers, adventure, better housing options. They visit family across the country, build new networks wherever they are living, and keep in contact with old communities via Skype, Facebook and email. We haven't moved all that far from the communities of family, friends, and profession that have been ours for the past 20 years - and it still feels like a major step away to move 90 miles north. I'm coming to realize that this step has more to do with leaving behind the suburbs of Seattle - a life we chose to raise our family.

That's the difference I feel as I lean on the railing of the deck, once again contemplating the swells coming up from the Strait of Juan de Fuca. I've moved to a small town that is not a bedroom community for a major metropolitan area. There is one Starbucks coffee shop. For anyone who lives in Washington, you know that means small town. There aren't any big box retail stores within the city limits - that's a half hour drive to Burlington. I've left the suburbs where access meant everything - schools, soccer fields, 24/7 grocery stores and strip malls. Great restaurants, theater, shows.

But not this beach.

I don't know what new opportunities wait for me here. Is there work here? Projects that will entice me off this deck? I hope so...in a few months. Right now, I'm content to keep unpacking all the physical and psychic baggage that I've brought with me. A friend had the perfect metaphor - I'm walking into a new room (literally and figuratively) and the old decor doesn't work anymore. Some of it will find a way onto walls and shelves but it won't be used in the same way. I don't quite know what the new decor will be but whatever begins to align with this transition will have to include the rhythms of the sea.

Daring to Let Go

Pulling open the hall closet doors reveals fifteen years of accumulated memories. I start slowly, making piles of school supplies, arts and crafts, photo books. There's all the old stencils that I never got around to using and three new boxes of crayons. Half a dozen old school binders that only a thirteen year old would love.

We've decided to put this house up for sale in the new year.

It's a conversation that's been happening for a couple years now. Without kids in the house, where do we want to live? What kind of place do we want to call our own? What does our life together now get to look like?

We've always agreed that first things first - we'd need to move on from this home and make our way towards another one.

Selling the house is the easiest part of the equation. Letting go of this home that is permeated with so much love and joy - and some teenage angst that ruined the carpet in one bedroom - is harder to do in real time. Talking about it has been fine - actually packing up the photo books - that's been tougher.


In order to sell a house, we have to depersonalize all the living spaces. The jumble of framed pictures collected over the last twenty years has to be sorted through and packed away. Some of the pictures have stuck to the frames and need extra help to keep most of the photo intact. There's a pile of old gilded frames heading to Goodwill while the photos go into an archival box with the hopeful aspiration to scan them all and make sure everyone has copies.

Why does this matter to me?

There is a sense of holding tightly to the snapshots of bright eyed children, wedding photos and the required holiday pictures in front of the fireplace. I'm reminded of how thick the woven tapestry of this life of mine is, how it has been built on relationship bonds and shared experiences that hold me, ground me - and in some ways do not release me into the future.

I've written about what it has meant to me to live in the empty nest - that sense of retiring from the particularly long and amazing career called parenting. Moving out of this house is daring me to live into that statement - to release my children to the world, to give priority to how Andy and I - it isn't just me making these decisions - want to live our lives.  The decision also impacts my parents and my sister; friends and work partnerships. Escape velocity - mucking with the family homeostasis - is one of the hardest things I've had to do.

Leaving this house is daring me to not only accept change but dive straight into the unknown.

But first we have to box up all the albums and trinkets and hand-made Mother's Day gifts that seem to be stuck in just about every corner of this house. I cry over pictures, blubber over handwritten notes to the Easter Bunny and lovingly find places for these precious items in boxes that may or may not ever see the light of day again.

Over the years, I've come to honor the grief that accompanies any change. I have to grieve what I am leaving or releasing, and in this case, it is a house - a way of living - that encapsulated some of the most incredible years of living that I have had. We intentionally built this house as a container of joy and love. And so it has been. May it continue to be so.

The cleaning out of cupboards and the decisions about which piece of furniture is going where is easy. Processing the end of an era needs time and gentle attention - and lots of tender love. From me, for me - while holding a vibrant excitement about what is next.

The Empty Nest Fills Back Up

The empty nest fills back up pretty quick.
College summer break for one daughter. Moving from the east coast to Portland for the other daughter. Two adult children - young women - back in the house.

While the older daughter - she who left for Portland today - had hoped to be here for only a month. She was here for over two months.

I can't claim to understand how difficult it has been to be back in this house after years gone or what it is like to come back to this particular home after a year at college. What I know about that is from a completely different era.

It is simply what needed to happen.

But I can certainly feel a huge sense of relief waving my oldest daughter back out into her adulting world. Maybe we were just a rest stop on her highway - a wonderful sojourn back in the heart of her family - but wow she was ready to get out of here.

How do we love so deeply, appreciate each other so fully - and revel in our independence when we escape the Family orbit? I ask that question not only for children - but for parents as well.

Sometimes its hard for me to realize that Andy and I are actually that orbit for our kids. This house is the black hole of regression where no one forgets what you did when you were fifteen or how you can push that one button that will send your brother (or sister) over the edge. And then there is us, as the parental unit - the looks we give, the tone of voice, the worry. We can't help it. When children regress, its hard not to join in. When parents treat us like we are children, we balk but enjoy the home cooking.

I don't have the stamina for parenting anymore. Call it menopause, aging, impatience - I'm not all that willing these days to be referee, short order cook, or dictator. Its hard not to put those hats on when two adult children are here long enough to lose their 'guest' status (that shiny, I'm so happy to see you phase) and start to roost. Two more adult women in the house is nothing to be taken lightly. Powerful sisterhood or a powder keg. Sometimes both at the same time.

And nothing lasts forever. The new apartment is rented, a new job starts, the college will soon open its doors...

My older daughter - who's been desperately waiting to head out, gave me a big hug this morning as she got ready to leave. She whispered a soft thank-you in my ear. I held her close, not wanting to release her... from my orbit. Damn, I thought, she was here long enough for me to get used to her being around. I kissed her cheek, told her I love her - and let go. Again. There was a bemused look on her face - too many thoughts, feelings, experiences to voice - and so she just leaned in and kissed my cheek, letting that say all that needed to be said.

I waved her off, that little car of hers loaded to the top as she heads down to the job and roommates that she's found. Off she goes again, ready to conquer the world.

The youngest has another month and then gets to head back to her friends in Walla Walla. I'll hug her close too on that day we drop her off. I'll probably get a little teary eyed, kiss her on the cheeks and tell her how much I love her. And let go. Again.

My kids, loving and tending them, is the orbit that is so hard for me to escape. And these complicated, amazing, quirky adults, who also happening to be my children, are living their lives full steam ahead. I feel loved and appreciated. I'm happy to clean out the guest room.

Parenting may be a role, but being a mother isn't. It just is. Love without strings. Faith and hope in all the wonderful goodness that will fill their lives - and letting go. Again and again.

My Father's Hands

Sitting with my father the other evening, I notice his hands. He has a bump on his thumb and is telling me how he went to get it checked out by the doctor and had to get it x-rayed. It's a kind of cyst, totally benign but annoying. I continued to look at his hands. He looks down at them too, turning them over, bringing the fingers and thumbs together. 

These hands have done so much over so many years, he says, isn't that amazing? 

I mention, with a smile, all the babies those hands have held.

I put my hand next to his and realize that our hands are about the same size in length but his fingers are a great deal thicker than mine. Why is this a surprise? To me, my father's hands are huge and strong. His skin is mottled with age, bruising and tearing easily like tissue paper. He tries to be careful but, more often then not, his hands and arms have one or two bandages covering tears and dark bruises. He refuses to NOT do all the things he needs those hands for. I think this week alone he has changed a tire; driven to a hospital with his wife's niece; changed out my sister's faucet; tried to fix his dishwasher; shepherded and helped dozens of kindergartens with their reading, computer skills and math assessments - along with who else knows what. I'm sure he's done all his yard work, vacuumed and opened at least a couple bottles of wine. He has texted me over his mobile phone. I'm also sure he has held his wife's hand as often as possible.

That's just the stuff I know about his week. He is a man who will always attempt to fix something first - and usually does. He builds furniture and he will edit photos in Photoshop. He'll tune his HAM radio and hitch up his trailer. Those hands of my father are probably the most capable, competent hands that I know - just by the skills and experiences that has filled their days.  Seventy seven years of DIY projects, drafting architectural plans, holding small hands...holding grandchild hands. Painting. Gardening. Comforting.

Pausing in that moment, really looking at those hands - time seems to stop and cascade briefly backwards. Image after image flows through my mind and I realize how blessed my life has been by my father and those hard working hands of his. I've watched him fix or build just about anything he put his mind to and sit on the floor with my children playing with plastic dinosaurs and blocks. The blessing he brings is in the truth that he has been a integral part of my life experiences. I don't just have the father figure, I have a father - man - in my life who has helped shape the way I look at the world. 

Literally, with those hands. 

I learned how to use my own hands and to look at the world as a place where my fingers belong in the soil or speckled with paint. 

The world is a hand's-on kind of place.

Thanks, dad

September 9, 1937 - August 2, 2018

A very long conversation

Every now and then, one of us makes a reservation, we dress up a little and head out for an evening to spend some time-out-of-time together. You might call this a date night - and I have too - but somehow 'date' night changes to something richer the longer I've been married.

I actually don't remember a lot about dating - those rituals of learning more about a potential partner. I've done most of my dating after I got married. They have been fleeting moments savored before returning to diapers, homework, and dirty dishes. Dates have been an hour or two where someone else cooks while we just sit and look at each other across the table. I could remember what it meant to look pretty, he could figure out where those dress shoes were hiding. We rarely went to a movie or an event that took time away from our ability to remember who we were before we were J's mom or dad; his wife, my husband. Sometimes we talked about kids, family and work. More often the conversation flowed into our hopes and dreams. It was a breath of fresh air, a moment to hold the vision and, yes, remember what brought us together so many years before.

Saturday night, we headed out to a great little Italian restaurant in Seattle and settled in with a carafe of wine with appetizers.

"Tell me about yourself - what's your name again? - I know I'm taking you home with me but I'd like to know a little more about you before I do."

Yes, that's what I said to my husband of 28+ years. Because we had been bantering he didn't look too startled - but still my basic question caught him off guard. "Who are you, what's important to you?"

I smiled into my wine as he sat and stared at me - not in frustration as you might imagine - but simply trying to figure out how does one even begin to answer that question.

What this man doesn't seem to realize is that he is extremely good at getting me to talk about myself. Whether its been the minutiae of a day spent home with sick children, or office politics or the latest family drama - he listens. What he is even better at is not talking about himself. He can share stories about others and, sure, he reveals himself in those stories - but he doesn't talk about the goodness in his heart, the skills, the successes that are so much a part of his life. I tell him he's brilliant and he looks baffled and then says that he's simply been lucky.

Right.

I don't know why it happened the way it did, perhaps because the conversation started in a playful pretend sort of way but as we sipped and ate our way through a few courses, the conversation delved into his dreams, his way of looking at the world and how he sees himself there. Listening, I was touched so deeply by this amazing man. Of course I'm not going to share what he talked about but I fell in love again with the person he is, not who I blindly assume him to be.

We do that, you know. Its not often in the loving chaos that is raising a family, working full-time, dealing with the world as it comes at you - it's not often that you look across the table and see a life partner with fresh eyes. We are lulled with assumptions, by our understanding, by all the little things that we take for granted.

What if I was meeting you for the first time?

I looked across the table and felt like the luckiest woman on the planet.

Occasionally he would get incredibly uncomfortable having what he considered such a one-sided conversation but I was so interested in what he was saying, just listening, asking another question - that I gently refused to let him start asking me matching questions. I realized something rather profound even as I said it to him - "I know that this conversation feels unbalanced to you, like it needs to be fair in some odd tit-for-tat way. Can you let that go? Just for a little while? This is a lifetime conversation between you and I - and these last couple of hours have been wonderful getting to know you - right now, in this time and place."

A Lifetime conversation.  A conversation that lives between the two of us that we pick up at odd times - building on other things we have said, experiences we have had. Sometimes I talk non stop for hours - I should remind him of a particular drive up from Las Vegas to Seattle.  Sometimes, when I have all my wits about me, I get him to talk about his living of life for a time as well. He's sneaky, the master at deflecting the conversation spotlight off of himself.

There is no balance sheet for this.

I recognize myself in this - I have often struggled with the notion of taking up space or the notion that there is only so much time (at dinner, in a meeting, for a debate) and we must have equanimity or else it isn't 'fair.' Somewhere over the last decade that has mellowed. What hasn't mellowed is my interest and love and curiosity for this man I married almost thirty years ago. He isn't the same boy I met when I was seventeen. Like me, he's a person who keeps growing, learning and deciding who he wants to be in the world. I'm not going to know him without making the space for him to share who he is with me.

And of course, as we walked hand in hand back to our car, he asked me, "so who are you, Jennifer?"

I just smiled rather smugly, "I'm a woman of mystery. But I'm still taking you home with me."