Progressive lenses….

Today, my new glasses arrived. I am in that stage of life where my sight is shifting. Since my earliest memories, I could not see further than arm’s length. Without glasses, my world is blurry. In the past few months, I have noticed that something was changing and after testing, I learned that I need two different prescriptions to successfully move through life. I could not help but think about all the analogies that could be made between my transition into this new lens and the ways that my progressive-lens-on-life correspondingly affects and effects my movements and choices. I am struck by the irony here.

My eyeball, I have learned, is probably too long, or my cornea may be too curved and that is why I have always been nearsighted. Now, as I am getting older, things are not as tight as they once were (my eye is not the only place this can be observed) and this creates a need for a smaller prescription for things which are close.

45 years has shifted my gaze…literally and figuratively.

I remember the year of the Bush/Kerry election. I was so far left at that point that I (honest-to-God) forbade my children from trick-or-treating at homes with Bush signs in them. Our new neighbor across the street had one and I was just certain that they were not worthy of giving my offspring candy…wow…was I ever self-righteous!

It ended up that those neighbors were great. They were eager to get involved in making our community better. They hired my kids to babysit for them and really cared to get to know them in ways that lots of the ‘progressive’ families who hired them never did. We both ended up moving but we are still in touch all these years later and the folks that got them as neighbors next are so blessed to have them.

I was stuck in my short-sightedness and my presumptions enough that I though I could sum up a person’s character from no more information than a piece of cardboard on a stick in their yard. Luckily, life provided lots of experiences that poked holes in my narrow worldview and I learned that when you assume, you really do make an ass out of you and me….

We may look different, vote different, sound different, smell different, cook different, sleep different, parent different, spend different, on and on…but at our core…in our deep, deep middle where our heart and mind and instincts all bundle together to make us humans who love and want to be loved….we are not really all that different.

Before I got my first pair of glasses, I used to squint my eyes to try to bring things into focus. Now, I have to move things closer or further to do the same sort of adjustment. I think that is a transferable skill. I think that taking a second look at folks and shifting our lens a bit will help to clear up some cloudy views. I think that we can rely on more of us preferring to be connected, liking a comfy bed, caring about our kids, worrying about our parents, being afraid of the dark, being inspired by nature, hoping for peace….than not.

We are at a place in history where it is so tempting to pile onto one side or the other on any issue under the sun. Pundits prey on our competitive nature and rally for us to take the side that looks like it is winning in a verbal sparring that we are supposed to think is news. Division is the tactic-of-choice for just about every platform out there. Let’s not be so easily manipulated. Let’s put on our progressive lenses and shift when we need a close examination but be comfortable when a longer view is called for. Your perspective does not have to be a threat to mine just because it is different. The danger comes when I push it so far away from me that I can’t understand anything about it. The more I stick to just my own kind, the scarier other kinds are and the scarier I become to other kinds…..

When I used to wake up in the night without my glasses, I remember being panicked that I would not find them and that I would have to walk across my room to the bathroom with blurred vision. Reaching out to touch the back of a chair was terrifying because my mind would twist and try to make me think that it was a person hiding in the dark. Groping for the doorknob, which I opened many times a day each and every day, felt so unsettling because it would surely be covered in spiders or snakes or some other awful thing this time because they wait for nearsighted-girls to take their glasses off so that they can trick them. All of this was because my sight was reduced to a scope which spanned barely past my own nose. I was the only safe thing that there was because I was the only thing that I could identify and safely rely on.

This is a metaphor for life.

This is an experience which we have all had.

This is absolutely understandable and yet so very dangerous.

We can not stick to the view that only goes to the tip of our finger tips, no matter whose finger tips they are. That is a prescription for division, isolation, fear, ignorance, hate….

Get your progressive lenses out. Squint when you need to. Try to see beyond your biases and preconceived notions. The shouting and finger pointing of the recent news-cycle is discouraging for most of us. Find someone you don’t really know much about and have coffee with them. Stop into a church of a different faith and see how they do things. Travel to a place that stretches you. Talk to a stranger and try to really listen to them. If we each did more of that, we would see that those imaginary-threats that we conjure up are really just doorknobs and chair-backs…..or more than likely, the blurry-image will sharpen into focus and end up being someone’s mom or brother or cousin with lots of the same thoughts running through their brain as ours.

Do you like me?

In the dark, in the quiet of my room, when all the kids are in bed, when all the guests have left, when all the chores are done, when it is just us…that’s when the voice in the back of my head gets the loudest. We tag-teamed life all day. We parented. We friended. We served. On a good day, we laughed. We move through life closely but sometimes, we interact more with those around us than we do with one another. At the end of the day, it is just us….yep, that voice…loudly and clearly fills me with doubt about how he feels about me. I know he loves me but does he like me?

I’m just going to say it.

I lie perfectly still and wait for him to come to bed. I listen to him take off his shoes, slip out of his clothes and climb into bed. Will he turn toward me or away? I hold my breath. I don’t say anything. Me!  The confident, assertive, grounded person who has a great marriage is crossing fingers and making wishes like a five year old who wants a bike for her birthday. I am truly willing him to pull toward me in silence. It is pathetic! It is embarrassing! It is the truth…

Today, I felt him move his pillow over toward my side of the bed and felt his arm come around my waist. I felt that touch deeply. I need him but I don’t want to sound needy. I want him but I don’t want to seem foolish. It is so silly.

We talked about it because I could not help but start crying. There is nothing worse than knowing that you are being rediculous and not being able to make yourself stop. Thankfully, the one person who I let see all my dark and ugly parts does like me. Yeah, of course he loves me but….for some reason, he even likes me. I got myself all worked up because of that stupid-loud- sneaky voice squeezed itself into my head and pushed out all the truth. I held my breath and waited for the worst case scenario to play out so that all the fears I had about not-being-liked-by-him could  come true and I could roll over and tell myself that that voice was right.

It’s not.

He likes me.

#BeforeGettingMarried

This hashtag took the prize in twitter-land today. Careful who may be peeking over your shoulder if you pull it up because some of the wisdom that folks are sharing about what you should check off of your bucket list before shackling yourself to another person for eternity…is…well…you can guess what it’s like. Nothing like the internet to bring out the inner thoughts that you may have preferred to not know.

2 hours ago

1. #BeforeGettingMarried
2. #TwinPeaks
3. #LawEnforcementAppreciationDay
4. Doug Marrone
5. #WhyGiveUpWhen
6. Jared Kushner
7. #PaulRyanMovies
8. Scalebound
9. Altaba
10. Chuck Johnson

This was the top-tweet list from 2 hours ago. I have to admit that I didn’t know anything about 4,7,8,9 or 10. I should have known about 9. I wish I could go back to not knowing about 10. 8 is outside of my scope of understanding. 7 was really funny…if you want a laugh, check that one out. 4 is about sports.

I was trying to guess why the marriage one was so big today and wondered if it comes up because lots of folks get engaged over the holidays or might be about to propose for Valentine’s Day. I am not sure how it floated to the tops of the collective minds of tweeters but it got me thinking.

The first time I married, I was 21. There was nothing that I wanted to do #beforegettingmarried. That was the thing I wanted to do. I could not wait to be a whole grown up, a mom, someone’s wife. Dreams. Plans. Fantasies. Drive. Blissful ignorance.

The second time I married, I was 31. Boy do 10 years make a difference. I did still want to be someone’s wife. I already was a mom. I felt as grown up as I think that I ever will. Mostly, I knew the things that I had done before getting married this time and I hoped that  it would not doom me to failure. Disney movies don’t usually show a pregnant bride with four kids hanging onto her in their happily-ever-after movies. I never saw one bride’s magazine that had 10 guaranteed remedies for honeymoon-morning-sickness. Arranging for your ex to watch the kids while you go to the justice of the peace is not something you hire a wedding planner for. Marriage was no longer mysterious and a tapestry of fantasies built by hollywood. I had done it. Here I was heading into it again but with way-more stacked against me. Baggage. Complications. History. Scars. Fears. But what a powerful hope…that’s what I brought to the table.

Before getting married, I hoped. I trusted. I tried again. I took a risk. He did too….not the trying-again part because he had not been married before…but he hoped. He trusted. He took a risk.

The first time, I thought my rough parts could be kept quiet. My waist could be sucked in. My smells could be covered up. My persistent-chin-hair could be secretly plucked.

The second time, rough was loud and clear. 4 babies had their way with my body. Butt paste, wet wipes, poop, sour milk and smashed cheerios covered any of my own smells and the chin hair had  grown friends. Nothing was hide-able. That’s really the best way to prep for marriage. #beforegettingmarried, get real. Pull out all you are and lay it on the table.

The first Christmas that we spent as Mr and Mrs was the year that children 1-4 got the stomach flu. It was as bad as you might imagine. We lived in a two-flat in Chicago with one coin-washer in the grungy basement. He didn’t get sick. I did. He got a front row seat to the real. I remember thinking…he isn’t going to run away…..he really meant all that in-sickness stuff. He was dragged into the muck-of-what-real-marriage is and he pushed up his sleeves to dig right in. It is one of my favorite holiday memories. There was no doubt that this man loved me. We had done enough of the honest #beforegettingmarried stuff so none of this shocked him or scared him off.

Another decade and a half have passed and two more kids left their mark on my flesh. Our smells have mingled and become familiar. I shave my face now. Being the Mrs to his Mr looks nothing like anything I imagined when being a grown-up-wife was a dream.

It is sweeter. It is harder. It is more lovely. It is uglier. It is better. It is the happily-ever-after that I did not even know to wish for. It is grace-filled and bumpy all at once.

I may not know much about 50% of the hot tweets of today but I know that most of the suggestions for what you must do or must have or must squeeze in #beforegettingmarried are baloney.  Find a way to be real together. Real sorry. Real grateful. Real scared. Real patient. Real tired. Real happy. Real sad. Real. Forever. There you go.

 

2017 – 8 pounds heavier

This holiday season was overflowing with hugs, kisses, stories at bedtime, balanced meals, laughter, acts of kindness, daily baths, tooth-brushing twice a day, plenty of sleep, warm blankets, extra adults, surrogate-siblings, soft pillows, christmas carols, prayers, consistent boundaries and unconditional love. Such a diet is far richer than in any of Matvei’s years prior. Any dietician will tell you that more in-than-out adds the pounds. No calories were shed to cope with stress, fear, uncertainty or disappointment. The fridge was always full, the food was always (or mostly) wholesome, the mouth was no longer full of pain and the schedule was consistent….

The result….8 pounds.

For this six-year-old boy to have gained 8 pounds in a little more than a month, grace had to have been flowing like a river. We can see the extra pockets of flesh filling out in his cheeks. His PJ pants creep up past his ankle bones which are a little less jagged.  His coat barely meets his wrists. Holding his hand feels different. When he jumps into your lap, he lands a little heavier. It is the most amazing feeling in the world.

I see my screen filled with ads, promises, advice, shame, programs all geared toward getting the number on the scale to be smaller. The irony of being surrounded an industry fueled by this seemingly virtuous pursuit as well as all of the money piling into already pretty-full pockets is too much to not notice.  Our sweet six-year-old is not the only child who has felt dire hunger…not only a hunger for nutrition but a hunger for a home and a family and access and enough of everything that you need to flourish. To see how easy it is to fill his tummy, his heart, his mind and his sense of security stops me short. If we can do this for him…how many could do this for others?

Our situation is not typical, I get that. I just know that all of us can do a little bit better. We can spend a little less time focussed on our waistlines and channel our excess in a direction that will really feed someone. Maybe that means that you keep your closet a little less full by buying those new jeans for someone else, or you stop in and visit that lady on your block who never really gets out of her house. What if you skip Starbucks for a while and fill a bag for the foodshelf instead? Free your schedule by taking a break from binge-watching and offer to tutor at your local library a couple of hours per week. Take your workout buddies to serve meals at a shelter one evening instead of spinning or lifting or yoga-ing or whatever you typically do. Hug someone who needs a hug. Smile at a stranger.

If we all add some love-weight to the emptiness that keeps so many hungry, we could really tip the scale (yep…using that imagery to the death). We got 8 pounds into this kid and we are not any different from any of you.

All of it really started with smiling at a stranger….anyone can do that….

Entrances and Exits

In my youth, I was a drama major. Much thought went into the comings and goings of characters from the stage. An audience was caught up to speed quickly by the demeanor/attire of the actor as they joined a scene even before they uttered a word. How an actor left the stage was just as meaningful. This is no accident. This mirrors life.

2016 was chock full of entrances and exits. It feels as if there were more of the latter…but that is probably not the case. Newsfeeds have been filled with names of people who deeply impacted our culture and have now left this stage for another. The weight of these losses is palpable across this country. We grieve.

Beyond deaths, we are facing the exit of a First Family that many of us have come to love an rely on and face the entrance of an unknown which many of us fear. News points us to stories of violence and conflicts which have entered the global stage. Countries and cities which we may not have heard of before are now a part of our vocabulary as we shed communal tears for brothers and sisters who have been viciously taken from us. Loss, loss, loss.

There has been deep sadness in 2016.

My husband calls me a pathological optimist. I move toward uplifting, upbeat, up-anything as a reflex. I savor the search for silver-linings and happy-endings and can construct them out of my own will. This year, that has not come as easily to me. Some of the final acts of friendships have been particularly painful. Deaths have brought tears. The Christmas cards that I pinned up this year are missing some faces that are usually there. Gatherings of friends have not included some who used to be regulars. Our holiday bore the weight of painful changes because of the exit of a way-that-things-have-always-been and the unwelcome entrance of how-things-are-right-now. I grieve.

 

There has been great joy in 2016.

In my little life, so many amazing things have happened this year. Friends have given birth to spectacular babies. Our son fully recovered from a nasty accident. A friend taught me how to sew and I made things. My husband figured out how to scrape the gunk out of my grandma’s pot so it could shine again. People ate and laughed and drank and shared and loved one another at our table far more often than not. My kids could reach all the high shelves for me. Loved ones have recovered from illnesses. We crossed Lake Michigan by ferry. All my greys grew in and I love them. Shoulders were there to cry on. Music continued to reach us. Nature kept filling us with wonder. Faith sustained us. We got to offer some kindnesses. We were offered some kindnesses. I rejoice.

Each year, we enter new and changed by the year past. We exit that very year different. Joys and sorrows shape us. The me-I-was this time last year is not the me-I-am today. That is not to say that there are not constants…of course there are. It is important to remind ourselves that we have been through countless entrances and exits and will continue to do so for the rest of time.

Ready or not…here comes 2017. May it leave us better than it found us.

Here is a glimpse of the family-that-we-are-at-the-moment as we step into this next year of living…

 

Just stopping by to love you, friend.

A friend stopped by yesterday. That rarely happens these days. I had not seen her in some time. The gesture was quite touching. We have many in and out of our home and out table is regularly stretched to fit more-for-dinner but those are almost always on-the-calendar sort of guests. The gift of a friend who just is going to come over in the hopes of seeing you is precious. They need no preparation. You are worth the risk that they may not even catch you at home. That touched me yesterday. That felt good.

I have known what it is like to have friends, friends you thought were very close, just not seem to have space for you any more. Sometimes that is painful. Sometimes it is almost undetected. Sometimes, it is just part of the natural rhythm of life. People whom I spoke with many times a week and saw with regularity, fade into memories which are triggered by photographs that pop up on my Facebook feed. I can not quite decide which category to place this phenomenon: is it a good thing or is it a bad thing. Occasionally, I place blame on the hers or hims who drop off my regular circle. I like to take a self-righteous tour of the relationship where I point out, to no one but myself and for no other reason than to feed my ego, how they never really held up their part of the friendship and I was unerring in my attendance to it. That must indicate that I sense a wrongness in the dropping of relationships and want to ascribe blame.

There are those friends whom need absolutely nothing from you. They are steady and true. They will pop into your life when you least expect it and want no more than to remind you that you are dear to them, or to share a tale that made them think of you, or to celebrate a joy with you, or to cry over a loss with you. Selfless acts of gracious connection feed my soul.

I think of the all-too-familiar biblical passage that gets tossed about in wedding ceremonies. It comes to me as a call to friendships in general…

4Love is always patient; love is always kind;

love is never envious or arrogant with pride.

Nor is she conceited, and she is never rude;

she never thinks just of herself or ever gets annoyed.

She never is resentful; is never glad with sin;

she’s always glad to side with truth, and pleased that truth will win.b

7She bears up under everything; believes the best in all;

there is no limit to her hope, and never will she fall.

Let that sit with you for a moment. That is what we all long for in friendship. That is the good stuff. Can I hold this up to my own behavior in friendships and feel peaceful about my character…sometimes…definitely not all the time…

I suspect that 2017 will be a year where friendship will be of great importance. People who love one another can help to give perspective when the world looks bleak. Patience and kindness will be needed to counter envy and pride. Conceit, rudeness, resentment and sin will long for truth. Limitless hope will keep us from falling into despair.

This is where I will throw my energy this year. May you friend well and be friended well. May this be a year where we just stop in. May the grace of friendship sustain you.

The big cry of Christmas Eve 2016

I have a habit of trying to busy my way past stress. If the to-dos are heafty enough, surely there will not be any time for feeling sadness, or so I like to tell myself. A holiday is a perfect situation for engaging this strategy.

This year, our family felt like one of those broken-families for the first time in 14 years since my divorce. We have managed to live in such a way that relative peace surrounds our family and most life-events are shared. That is not the case this year. We have been adjusting to a new rythm with clear division of space and time between my ex and myself. It is not comfortable. It is painful. It is stressful. To complicate an already tender time, the plans, traditions, expectations of a holiday season ramp everything up and invite the worst kind of entitlement. My Christmas should be fantastic, of course. My traditions should be upheld at all cost. My gifts will be the best. My events will be the most fun. My, my, my….

I am primed to engage my strategy to mitigate all of the risks of feeling any negative emotions. Lists are written. Guests are invited. Decorations are hung. Gifts are made/bought. Meals are planned. Good-deeds are scheduled. Every nook and cranny that could house any sadness is filled with something to do or someone to do something for or somewhere to be. It serves me so very well….until it doesn’t.

Our kids met us at Macy’s for our anual tradition of taking a picture with Santa. They came with the feelings that they carried from leaving their father on Christmas Eve. Heavy stuff. All of us tried to move through this event as if it was the same as it had been for the past 14 years. You park, walk through women’s shoes, take the elevator to the 8th floor, walk through the Santaland Display, snag a spot in line to be hearded into the velvet-draped room where we fight about which kid sits on Santa’s knee, then out to select this year’s ornament and home again home again, jiggety jog. Done.

We get home, have a snack, get back into the car, go to Christmas Eve service, come home, take down all of the Advent decorations, put up the Christmas decor, hang the stockings….that is when it happened…that is when we crashed into the wall of this-year-is-not-like-the-other-years-and-that-really-sucks. If memory serves, 5 of the 7 of us cried (child #1 is overseas so she missed out on being one of the criers). We each had our own take on why we were sad and our own complaints, dissapointments, resentments, and feelings of entitlement that bubbled out of us and at one another in angry tones and through stinging tears. I felt all the sads from what our family was going through on top of the dissapointment that my to-do lists had not innoculated myself, nor my kids, nor my husband from ugly-cries on Christmas Eve when everything is supposed to be perfect!

The funny thing about this sort of moment is how much better we all feel after having it. Our bodies are not being fooled by the distractions that we dangle in front of them. The tears need to happen. The feelings need to be acknowleded. That phrase ‘to have a good cry’ is just so, so true.

Apologies were said for the ugly words that bubbled up during our collective-melt-downs. Dinner was eaten at about 1:30 am and then we began our sweet, lovely, quiet, unplanned, unmanaged, gift-exchange with laughter and that peace that we all longed for. It was perfect.

None of our holidays will ever feel quite the same again…. Part of that is because of the new dynamics. Part of that is because really none of them ever were the same…there is always something that is different. Last year, children 1 and 2 were in Spain and we were in New Orleans…that was different. Every year life provides the grace of change and growth that moves us into newness, deviation from norms, adustments, natural ends and beginnings. That is the norm. That always has been the norm. That will always be the norm.

I am so thankful for the big-cry-of-Christmas-Eve-2016.

 

Will you please stay and hold me?

If you want to feel all the feels, try helping a 28 pound 6 year old get to sleep when he is away from his mother who has flown to a land called Russia that he doesn’t understand. Living in shelters, moving in and out of stressful circumstances, navigating a world in poverty and uncertainty has knitted together a bond between these two that is iron-clad.

I was giving myself some space for a good dose of self pity that day. Hopes I had were not working out. People were disappointing me. My efforts were unseen. Tic, tic, tic…I had the perfect line-up of reasons to wallow. We have not had to do bedtime in years. Now, this kid was in our house and we needed to get him to sleep at a decent hour so that he could wake up for school the next day. What a pain! I was adding this to my list of reasons that my life was not fair. I sent child #3 in to do the task for me. She came out and said that it wasn’t working. I am pretty sure that I said something of a passive-egressive nature. Eye rolling was probably involved. I pouted my way back into the room he was trying to get to sleep in.

I am the sort of mom that usually gets kids to do what I say. I was all ready to just say it was time to go to bed and that he would comply because I had said so. I was not feeling patient, kind, empathetic, compassionate…

Then, I saw him. He barely made a bump in that bed. He turned his little head toward me and a tear rolled down his cheek. ‘Liz, I miss my mom.’ Well…yep…of course he does. Who wouldn’t. I asked him if he wanted me to snuggle him and he nodded his head yes. I climbed up beside him and held him. ‘I miss her so much my stomach hurts.’ ‘Why did she have to leave?’ ‘ When will she come back?’ ‘Where is Russia?’ ‘Is she in a house like your house?’

Shh shh shh, little one. You are safe. Your mom loves you so much and she will come back to you as soon as she can. You are here with us and we will keep you until she can come back.

My cold/self-centered heart melted. His tiny fingers wrapped around mine and we cried together. I cried because I was sad that I had gotten myself into that yucky place where sad morphs into entitlement and anger. It is so ugly.

He cried because his one constant, his only security, his greatest love was gone.

I tried to slip out when I thought that he was sleeping heavily enough…but no. He grabbed my hand and said

‘Liz, will you please stay and hold me?’

I think of that Taize song that we often sing at Lent that repeats ‘stay with me. remain here with me. watch and pray.’ There is a melancholy to the tune that can place a person right into what it feels like to want to be with someone when fear and pain are just too great to bear alone. We can all relate to that feeling. Whatever your stance on the Bible is, you can see why Jesus would have wanted his besties to be with him, to hold him, to stay…

(big segue warning)

I have a group of women that have stayed with me, remained with me through joys and sorrows. We met. We laughed. We trusted one another with our darkest secrets. We ached for one another when we felt pain. We got each other. We get each other. We call ourselves  the Hot Dish Ladies. It’s ironic. All that stuff that I was feeling a few paragraphs up, all that wallowing and yuck is just fine with them. They get it. They are not annoyed by it. They say the right things. They remember the pertinent details. They stay. Here are some of them:

These are the sort of friends who want to go out on a frigid ( colder-than-Mars-kind-of-frigid) Sunday evening, after dark, to celebrate one of us who is about to enter her 40s. They want to know the things that most people would rather not get into. They want to be mad at the people you are mad at, sad about the things that you are sad about. They want to remind you of the story you told 6 years ago where you did that thing and you thought it was going to be a deal breaker but everything worked out ok. They want to help you see just how beautiful you are. They want to mark new beginnings, to share sad endings, to laugh and be laughed with because they know that it is better to do those things with people…not just any people…with these people.

It feels good to know that you have someone who will  stay and hold you in those moments where that is the only thing that will make you feel better. Matvei knows that as a 6 year old. Biblical writers knew that. My hot dish ladies know that. Everyone knows that.

Gemilut Chasadim -Bestowing Kindness…even to myself

There is a jewish saying “Charity awaits the cry of distress. Benevolence anticipates the cry of distress.” Gemilut Chasadim is a mitzvoth…a commandment… in the Jewish tradition. It is a call to act with benevolence toward any and everyone. A call to kindness.

Here are some great images of folks anticipating cries of distress and doing what they can to be kind:

Giving drink to the thirsty, shelter to weary, comfort to the stranger, companionship to the lonely, safety to the endangered. This is just the sort of phrase that I love. All the great religious traditions call on their communities to something similar. Lots of us work on the call to gemilut chasadim…even thought we don’t use those words.

Parenting pulls out lots and lots of opportunities for bestowing kindness. Anticipating cries of distress and meeting them with benevolance is the name of the game for years and years of guiding little beings safely through their stages of development.

My kids here me say to ‘Err on the side of kindness and then you will never make a mistake’ more often than they would like. This is subjective, of course. From my perspective, enforcing bedtimes, limiting screen-time, requiring chores,  brokering peace, teaching manners, etc are all acts of kindness. I am anticipating the cries of distress which would come from young adults who don’t know how to share, can’t get along with others, who have not been set up for success in life.  My kids’ perspective can easily pin these same acts as acts of unkindness. Usually, the line between kindness and unkindness is pretty clear to me. Today was not one of those days.

Two of my kids are technically adults. They can dip in and out of my world as they please. They are self sufficient, responsible, full-functioning members of society and that affords them the freedom to live out of their own perspective. I have spent 22 years honing my philosophy of parenting and raising my kids in that. My perspective (and my hubby’s even though he doesn’t always think he has as much influence as he might want) dictates rules, privileges, responsibilities…all the in’s and out’s of my kids’ world. My-way is the highway, so to speak. That can’t go on forever.

It is an interesting process that I am going through now, as I unhook from always driving things with these two adult women that I birthed. I have to shift into a passenger-seat. 22 years of habits and reflexes and gut-reactions have to be slowed down and examined. I have to remind myself that I am not the only adult in the room when I am with them. My-way was rooted in kindness (in its best moments) but it really is not so kind any more. I don’t necessarily know if they are thirsty, tired, in danger,  making the right choice, doing the right thing…I can’t anticipate with as much certainty.

It is hard. It is wonderful. It is gratifying. It is challenging. Some days, I really suck at it.

Today, I hit all the marks of a newbie-mom-0f-adult-chilren.

• Spent money I shouldn’t have to try to please
• Put aside things I needed to be doing which would bite me in the butt later
• Tried too hard
• Stuffed my feelings instead of unhooking from them
• Felt really sure that I was doing all the wrong things
• Felt really sure that I was doing all the right things
• Got resentful
• Fell apart in the end because of all the straining and stuffing and trying and resenting…

Poor child #2 did not know what hit her. She apologized…and yeah, she was a little snappy and less-than-effusive and a little self-focused…but my meltdown was definitely not her fault.

Someone needs to have mommy-and-me classes for the 20-somethings and us middle-aged mamas. I remember learning about startle-responses, tongue-thrusts, swaddling, burping….all the quirky things that infants bring as a part of their being that young-mamas and dads don’t always expect.

Where is the class that will clue me into the doings of a typical well-launched-kid? How can I balance wanting to help and support them without telling them what to do and prying more than I really should into their choices? How can I name that I miss seeing them in the every-day without making them feel guilty for having their own life?  Where is the line between respect for me as an elder and squashing their rights to their own opinions? How do I keep them safe and give them room to make their own mistakes?

I guess that this is a spot in life where I need to offer some benevolence to myself. I need to anticipate my own distress as I have some growing pains and treat myself kindly. I want to do this at the same time as anticipating where they (the new adults in my life) may encounter some distress and offering them kindnesses along the way. Erring on the side of kindness needs to go both ways.

Whew! This growing up thing is hard at 45….its a different kind of hard than it was when I was 20…still, it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks…not that I am old…just sort of set in some of my ways.  I need buckets of grace!

Here is a shot of those amazing women that are helping me to grow up. They are pretty fabulous. Maybe I am biased….no…they just are….

 

 

What’s for dinner

A surprising amount of my energy is devoted to the budgeting, planning of, shopping for, prepping, assembling, setting up, describing, cleaning after, storing, and not-to-mention eating of dinner. One time, when I was pregnant with child number six, I calculated how many times I lifted one item from my dinner menu before it was consumed. The answer was seven or eight, depending on whether I count the time that I pull it back out of the pantry or refrigerator to use it for dinner prep.  Here is how I came to that number:

1. From the shelf into the cart
2. From the cart to the checkout conveyor belt
3. From the belt into a bag
4. Bag to the cart
5. Cart to the car
6. Car to the house
7. Bag to the pantry/fridge
8. Pantry/fridge to the dinner prep arena

This list made me fell better about being so fatigued by dinner. This does not even take into account the tone that my dinners can receive from the audience at my table. Typically, they are fairly complimentary but when the reviews are poor, the task becomes thankless…..that is never a happy thing.

Some data crunchers should calculate what percentage of a parent’s week is dedicated to the beginning-to-end process that is dinner. I think that number would be shockingly high. No wonder the fast food industry does so well and takeout is so popular.  Who does not want to outsource this level of labor? Well…not us, apparently.

Cooking shows, cookbooks, cooking classes, cooking competitions, food-porn, cooking gadgets, etc have got to be a hefty part of our GNP. You can’t go very far without bumping into one or many of these on tv or on your computer. It is as if there is a collective hum across our nation that cries out the question:  What’s for dinner?

Our household has fallen into a weekly schedule, of sorts, which goes like this:

Monday – Red Beans and Rice

Tuesday – Tacos or pasta or something everyone will definitely like 

Wednesday- Something that was on sale that week 

Thursday – Enough for a crowd because we host a group that night

Friday – Pizza or takeout because I’m worn out

Saturday – Almost always guests for dinner so something to combine with whatever they are bringing

Sunday – Lunch out or guests for lunch so no real dinner

That’s it. No glamor but the cultural nod of Mondays’ menu is unique. 

We set the table. That’s pretty consistent. I have an index card with the template for a table setting. I’m kind of a stickler about table manners. I’m often telling kids to sit up and take their elbows off the table. I note that many adults then check themselves a bit as I call out to the kids. Reflexes of response are hard to shake. 

We use cloth napkins. We usually have wine. We go around the table, oldest to youngest, and share our happy-favorite day and sad-favorite day and then water someone’s flowers…if we are so moved. It can take 30 min if we are efficient and has gone hours when we’re not. Everyone gets a moment of focused attention. 

We are fed body, mind and spirit. Dinner is more than what ends up on the plate. It is laughter, stories, shaping, sharing and building the narrative that is us. 

Bon appetit!